“Get away from the window,” Dan yelled at her. “There could be more.”
More. Joan looked out again at the dead and dying, at the fires and blood, at the wreckage of what had been a safe, beautiful place just seconds ago. Whatever had done this, there could be more? Her camera still hung off her shoulder from taking pictures of the girls singing. She raised it up and snapped several shots, then crawled back to her family, and hunkered down with them.
The minutes dragged by as many of the cries of pain grew louder. Worse, some of the screaming voices had now gone silent. Joan could see the greeting coordinator, Monica, lying on her side with a large shard of glass protruding from her neck. She was not moving. Heavy footsteps came up the stairs, and then Joan was lifted off the floor by a fireman, and she saw another helping her husband and the girls. Lacey was crying, but Emily Ann seemed to be in shock, her face pale and her eyes dry.
They went down the stairs and through a demolished entryway onto what used to be the parking lot. A number of vehicles were still upright, and there were crowds of survivors being helped onto stretchers or into ambulances, but the number of bodies lying motionless on the smoking blacktop was too high to count. Hundreds, easily.
“Cover their eyes,” she called to Dan, but it was too late. Lacey had her head buried in her father’s shoulder, but Emily Ann’s eyes were wide and staring. Right in front of her, a little boy of about five was crying for his mother, carrying in his right hand what remained of his left arm. His face had been badly burned, and as a fireman ran toward him, he dropped to the ground. Emily Ann let out a quiet “Oh,” and then her breath hitched in her chest.
A paramedic ran up to them, and the firemen handed them off. The paramedic hurried them toward one of a group of ambulances that were quickly becoming overrun. “We’re getting you out of here,” the paramedic said.
Joan saw the ambulance’s doors open for them, but then a brilliant flare of light burst out from two SUVs parked only yards away. The blast slammed into Joan and her family, and she knew no more.
Chapter 25
Washington, DC
May 2011
Stryker had finished his morning workout when he received a call from Rachel. Her voice was choked and distant, and she kept crying as she tried to tell him about the church bombing. Stryker told her his location and to send a team to bring him to her embassy.
He waited on a park bench for pickup, his head spinning, guilt and anger fighting to claim him. It was hard to sit still. The attack had been planned for June, not May. What had he missed? He knew he had been right about Ali. He had moved up the attack on the church after taking out his own team. He had outsmarted them just as he did in Bulgaria.
Stryker’s phone rang again, Sparks this time. “What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know. They moved it up. I’m on my way to meet Rachel to get more information.”
“I’m looking at the first news coverage right now. It’s bad, Jake. We’re talking hundreds dead, lots of families with kids.”
Stryker pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed out hard. “OK. I’ll call when I find out more details.”
Soon after, Stryker recognized a car and the Mossad agent inside and ran over. The car took him to the embassy, where Rachel ran up to him, still crying, and wrapped her arms around him.
“I’m a mess, I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her face. “It’s just so much like when I lost my dad.”
“I know.” He hugged her, let her get her breathing under control, and pulled her toward one of the meeting rooms. “Come on. Let’s see what the others have found out.”
They found Abel and several other team members watching a television set that showed scenes of the devastation. Stryker took in the horrific images for a few seconds and then looked away and sat at the table. Sara walked in, clicked off the TV, and stood with her fingertips resting lightly on the edge of the table. Her face was taut, her jaw set.
“It looks like an initial set of bombs were timed to go off as people came out of the service. Then, after first responders arrived and started helping survivors into ambulances, a second set of bombs went off, killing even more. As you can imagine, it’s chaos down there, and accurate numbers won’t come for a while. But, best I can tell, we’re looking at around two hundred dead with another two-fifty wounded, which makes this the worst terror attack on United States soil since 9/11.” A round of drawn breaths and swearing went around the table, and she let it pass before continuing. “Emergency units were called in from nearby areas, plus the FBI, ATF, CIA, Denver PD, Denver Fire Rescue, and Homeland Security. Of course, they’re only going to get mired down in bureaucratic turf wars. Every route in and out of the state is on alert, although we expect the team responsible has already fled.”
Sara sat and seemed to have nothing else to say. Rachel continued staring at the blank, grey television set, as if she could still see the video from Colorado Springs.
Stryker coughed, clearing his throat, and everyone looked at him. His voice was low, but the room was otherwise silent. “We are going to kill every one of these bastards if it is the last thing we ever do.” Nods went around the table. “Rachel, did Daniel decide about Herb Miller?”
“Daniel has been on the fence about us being involved,” she said.
“Do you think he will change his mind after today?”
“One way to find out.” Rachel rose and left the room. Sara turned the television back on while they waited, and they listened to interviews with survivors and the local police chief.
Rachel came back into the room and Sara clicked off the set. “Daniel is in, and Miller is in play,” Rachel said.
“Then we need a plan to grab him,” Stryker said. “We will need surveillance, pictures, patterns, and the whole workup so we can grab him safely. We don’t want any of his people killed unless necessary.”
“We shouldn’t need more than a week,” Abel said.
“Good. Let’s get to it then. Keep me posted.” The meeting ended, and everyone left to get to work, although Stryker waved at Rachel and Sara to stay behind. “I think Ali will go and meet the Russian as soon as things settle down. I also think we can get ahead of him by turning Herb Miller, but I need your help. Miller will be the contact setup for Ali and the Russian. The meeting will probably be in Afghanistan since I believe the Russian will not travel to meet him elsewhere.”
Rachel spoke up. “We need to get assets into Afghanistan starting now.”
“Does the Mossad have a presence in the region?”
“Yes, but it is small and only for intelligence gathering.”
“I need to speak with Sparks and see what he suggests.” Stryker looked from Rachel to Sara. “Can you get us large amounts of firearms?”
“We can get just about anything we need,” Sara said. “What’s your plan?”
He leaned across the table toward them, his voice low again. “I plan to stop these people. The three of us and Sparks, plus some of his Hatchet operators, move into Afghanistan and kill Ali and the Russians. I think Herb can get us in since he is a contractor on the ground in the area.”
“We just need to persuade him that he has no other choice,” Rachel said.
Sara watched him, her face still emotionless. “What role will Rachel and I play in this operation?”
“Both of you will be responsible for killing Ali. I am going to take out the Russian and his men with help from Sparks.”
Rachel and Sara nodded, and Stryker could not miss the excitement in Rachel’s expression. “How do you want us to take Ali?” she asked.
“We need to get on the ground before we can make plans, but you can use guns, knives, bombs, or anything else so long as he ends up dead. Good enough?”
A tight, determined smile curved Rachel’s mouth. “Consider it done.”
Stryker pulled out his phone and punched in the number for Sparks. “Sparks, I need you here as soon as possible. And leave all of my equipment in your hangar.”<
br />
“I can leave within the hour. What’s the occasion?”
“Send me your flight information and I will pick you up at the airport. We’re going hunting.”
Chapter 26
Washington, DC
May 2011
It was a cool day, bright with sunshine and sweet with the smell of flowers. The trees were filling out with new leaves, and the District was coming alive with the prospect of tourists arriving from all parts of the world. Stryker drove to the airport, his mood and thoughts at odds with the warming, thriving city he saw through the windshield. His mind drifted, and images flickered before him—the Twin Towers, his dying niece, the Black Hawk crash, the children in the village bombing, the church lot covered in flames and gore—and he nearly side-swiped an airport shuttle bus, the blare of horns forcing him to focus.
At the main concourse, he found that Sparks’s flight was delayed half an hour, so he walked through some of the shops and book stores. At one of the newsstands, where every headline shouted the tragedy of Colorado Springs, Stryker was flipping through a magazine when he sensed the presence of someone watching him. He flipped a few more pages, put the magazine back on the rack, and strolled to the closest men’s room. Stryker entered a stall and climbed up on the toilet seat and waited. He waited some twenty minutes, hearing several men come and go. After the last man left, another man entered, and Stryker heard him doing something with the door. His footsteps then moved down the row of stalls, stopping at each one.
He waited until the man stopped in front of his stall and then Stryker kicked open the door. It smashed into the man’s face and knocked him backward. The man recovered his balance and raised a gun, but Stryker lunged forward and tackled him fully to the ground. He wrapped an arm around the man’s throat in a modified choke hold, cutting off his air. The man flailed, struggling to twist free. He clawed at Stryker’s hands and slammed his elbow back toward Stryker’s chest. Stryker leaned back, laying him out on the floor, pressing harder until the man’s blows turned to feeble taps, and seconds later he went limp.
“I should kill you now,” Stryker muttered. He looked down at the man unconscious on the floor.
He was Iranian if Stryker had to guess, and he wore a generic grey suit. Nearly as tall as Stryker, the man was muscular, not an ounce of fat on him, and when Stryker rifled his pockets he found only a set of keys to a Toyota, a roll of mints, and a plain leather wallet with twenty dollars and a driver’s license for one Thomas Murphy that was almost certainly fake. Stryker dragged him over to the supply closet and stuffed him inside.
On the floor by the sinks, he found the man’s gun, a Sig 9 mm pistol. It was becoming increasingly likely that Ali had information Stryker was alive. Maybe Iranian Intelligence had seen him coming and going from the Israeli Embassy, despite his precautions. He pocketed the gun and the wallet and left the bathroom after undoing the cords the man had used to tie the door closed. He had also placed a “Closed for Repairs” sign on the outside, which Stryker left up.
Stryker pulled out his phone and dialed as he walked. “Rachel, I just stuffed an Iranian Intelligence agent into the supply closet in an airport bathroom.”
“Somebody’s in for a surprise when they go looking for toilet paper,” she said. “What are you going to do with him?”
“Leave him. He won’t be a problem there, and trying to bring him out of the airport would create more trouble than it’s worth. Sparks will arrive in another ten minutes.”
“You need to hurry. The guy in the closet might not be alone.”
“Copy that.” Stryker walked briskly, just under a jog, but this was not unusual at an airport, where everyone seemed to be in a hurry to get to one place or another. His eyes were in constant motion, scanning those standing at payphones, yawning behind newspapers, getting their shoes shined, buying coffee. Everyone was suspect.
“We will be waiting to pick you up outside,” Rachel said. “Did he have a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Take it for fingerprints.”
“Way ahead of you. I’ll get Sparks, and we’ll meet the car outside soon.”
Sparks was one of the first off the plane. A duffel bag was slung over his shoulder, just small enough to fit in an overhead bin. Sparks nodded to Stryker as he exited the secure area.
“What have I missed?” Sparks asked.
“The usual.”
“That bad, huh?”
They proceeded outside without issue and found the Mossad car at the curb. They met Rachel and Sara, who were waiting for them. Stryker handed over the wallet and gun to Sara, who would send them to Tel Aviv for possible identification.
“I believe the Iranians know I’m alive, and may even suspect I’m working with the Mossad,” Stryker said. “Sparks, can I stay in one of the Agency’s safe houses here in DC for a while? They’ll be looking for me at the embassy.”
“Sure, I’ll arrange it. What’s the latest on our busy Iranian friend, anyway?”
“From what we can tell,” Rachel said, “Ali has not contacted Kaesar for more money. He’s gone silent since the attack in Colorado.”
“So he’s a ghost, at least for the moment,” Sparks said.
“I’ll find him,” Stryker said. “I think Ali will try to make direct contact with the Russian, so we should plan to go to Afghanistan. Miller may be our best option for obtaining the time and location of the meeting. Sparks, can you check your sources in the Agency for information concerning Miller’s activities in Afghanistan? The Mossad has agreed to help us snatch and grab him and will turn him over to us.”
“I can check, but I still think Miller is a decent guy who got caught up in something over his head. I think he was doing a favor for the vice president, so I suggest we leave the Mossad out of this. Maybe we should forget about grabbing Miller and instead meet with him and ask for his support.”
“I like the idea,” Stryker said. He looked at Rachel, who shrugged noncommittally. “You could call him under some pretense, Sparks, and set a meeting.”
“Can do, Chief.”
“Tell him you’ll be bringing an associate. We’ll likely need equipment at some point too.
Can you get your hands on a couple of Barrett fifty cal’s?”
“The M-82 A1?”
“Yeah. With scopes. And some Raufoss MK 211 explosive rounds.”
“The Mossad has those, but it might be better for Sparks to acquire them,” Sara said.
“I can get them,” Sparks said. “I just need to make some calls.”
“Good. Make them.”
Three days later, Sparks’s sources in the Agency provided information about the location of Alexsey Fedorov. He lived in a village in the Herat province of Afghanistan, which bordered Iran. According to the report, the Taliban protected him so he would be a difficult target. Fedorov’s main activity involved managing shipments of opium. The money, Sparks believed, was being managed by Kaesar through Geneva.
Stryker finished skimming through the report and looked up at Sparks. “Now all we have to do is convince Herb Miller.”
Chapter 27
Moscow, Russia
June 2011
Aleksey Fedorov stepped out of a Bentley in front of the Café Pushkin, regarded by many as the most elegant restaurant in Moscow. Housed in a nineteenth-century Baroque mansion, each floor was themed and decorated differently. Fedorov was guided to a private dining area on the third floor, which resembled an Old World library with antique telescopes, globes, and overflowing bookcases. A security team stayed posted outside and out of sight.
He had flown in from Herat to meet with three members of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR. These men reported directly to the president of Russia and also supervised the deep cover Zaslon Spetsnaz Group within Directorate S. Two of them were tall and well-built, with square jaws and receding hairlines, while the third was a pale, whip-thin man with lanky black hair. Fedorov himself had remained trim and hearty, even though he was ap
proaching seventy years old, and took pride in his physique, if no longer his hair—it had all fallen out. He wore glasses and was partially blind in one eye from an old injury.
“Comrades,” he said as he sat, “it is always a pleasure to see you.”
The thin man snorted. “As much a liar as ever, I see.”
In normal Russian custom, they ordered vodka and drank a toast to themselves and to Mother Russia. All four men were KGB in a time gone by, back when the KGB, for all intents and purposes, was Russia. Since 1991, everything had changed. The KGB broke apart, never to regain its position of supreme power. Of course, Russians did not like being side-line players on the world stage. They wanted once again to be a super power, and to do so required them to make alliances with Iran and China to offset American world dominance. The SVR became a smaller version of the once powerful KGB and used its former KGB officials to help regain power. Fedorov had become one of the most important of these former KGB members, for he owned one of the largest illegal drug operations in the world.
Out of the offices he maintained in Herat, Fedorov employed several assistants to help with paperwork and scheduling of shipments. Most of the shipments went by truck and some by private aircraft. Fedorov acted as the middleman for the purchase and sale of opium grown in Afghanistan and sent all over the world. He had fought for the USSR in Afghanistan for over eight years, and during that time he had developed contacts with local tribal leaders. He began smuggling operations while in the KGB to finance covert operations. After the war, Fedorov had continued building supply lines and expanding sales operations into South America, Mexico, and the United States. These days, Fedorov was also the main supplier to the Russian mob.
After the breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Fedorov had stayed close to the politicians and mob bosses. He continued to have friends at the highest levels of government, and his operation in Afghanistan alone produced $4 billion a year. Because of Fedorov’s success, the SVR could fund covert operations for Iran in return for oil. The partnership had become profitable for everyone involved.
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