Pandora's Grave (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  Tex glanced up and down the alley, unsure whether to knock again, or leave. The Agency had maintained a professional relationship with Avraham Najeri for the better part of two decades, but it was a relationship of mutual suspicion.

  While the Maronite Christian Arab maintained a clothing store at the front of his establishment, his real money was made in the basement. Dealing with his passion: black market firearms.

  The Texan considered dealing with him an unpleasant necessity. He and the Arab merchant of death had never hit it off. The little man talked too much, and it offended his sensibilities deeply.

  “Mr. Richards!” the door opened just as Tex had lifted his hand to knock once more. A wide smile was plastered across the face of the weapons dealer. “Come in, come in, it’s been too long.”

  The CIA agent ducked his head to slip inside, observing the pistol in Najeri’s left hand. It wasn’t a mistake–the Arab was ambidextrous.

  “So, what brings you to my humble establishment?”

  “The usual.”

  Najeri laughed. “My outposts have assured me you are alone. This is good—I would have considered it a personal affront had you deceived me. You need a weapon?”

  “Two of them.”

  “Good, good. Right this way.” The gun dealer hesitated, then waved him forward. “After you.”

  11:40 A.M. Tehran Time

  The Alborz Mountains

  “Yes, sir. I understand, sir.” Thomas looked out over the mountains, struggling to digest the words of the DCS.

  “We’re still looking for another work-around,” Kranemeyer continued. “But until then, it’s on you.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I know you will, Parker. You’ve been one of our best men.”

  Past tense. The words hit Thomas with the impact of a rifle bullet. His vision seemed to cloud suddenly, as though he moved in a trance. He heard Kranemeyer’s final words of good-bye, heard himself respond with a numbed, “Yes, sir.”

  The phone clicked off, severing the connection. He turned, handing the phone back to Azad Badir.

  His feet seemed to move of their own will, carrying him across the mountain path to a ledge overlooking the valley. The valley of death.

  His death.

  Thomas had faced death before, but it had never filled him with this unspeakable, crawling horror. It was one thing to face a man with a gun in your hand, even odds of survival. But the plague…

  10:32 A.M. Local Time

  Ashqelon, Israel

  Leaving Beer-sheba, Tex turned south along the highway. The deal with Najeri had gone well, despite the money it had taken. A Belgian-made FN-FAL rifle was disassembled in the trunk of the car, along with a hundred rounds of 7.62mm NATO.

  The other half of the purchase was strapped to the Texan’s ankle: a short-barreled .357 Magnum. Some might have considered a semiautomatic a better choice, but he had always been partial to wheelguns. In any case, it was a back-up gun.

  If things went well, the guns and car would wind up in the Red Sea following successful termination of the op.

  On the other hand, if things went poorly, the eight thousand dollars he had paid Najeri would be money well spent. Preparation. The name of the game.

  Tex sighed and checked his GPS. A hundred kilometers to Eilat…

  5:30 A.M. Eastern Time

  The Oval Office

  Washington, D.C.

  “What do you hope to gain from this meeting with the Israelis?” President Hancock asked, lifting his eyes from the dossier in front of him. Directors David Lay and Lawrence Bell sat before him, in chairs facing the Resolute desk.

  “A more exact understanding of the situation,” the DCIA replied without hesitation. “I have had a long professional relationship with General Shoham—trust me when I say he would not call for this meeting if he did not believe it would be mutually advantageous.”

  “Or advantageous to his government,” Hancock countered. “It has been my experience that the Israelis act exclusively in their own interests, as often as not.”

  The remark brought a look of disbelief to Lay’s face. “That, of course, is the spy business, Mr. President. There is no free lunch.”

  “The meeting goes down in Eilat?” the President continued, ignoring the tacit reproof in Lay’s reply.

  “Yes.”

  “Who did we send?”

  The DCIA stiffened in his chair. “With all due respect, Mr. President, I must refrain from answering the question. You don’t have need-to-know on that aspect of the operation.”

  Hancock shot a look of irritation at Lawrence Bell, but didn’t follow up on the question. After an awkward pause, the National Intelligence Director turned to Lay.

  “Keep your men on a tight leash, David. Anything they pass on to the Israelis—I want it run through my office first. Do we have an understanding on this?”

  “Of course.”

  “I believe that concludes my portion of the briefing,” Lay announced twenty minutes later, closing his briefing folder.

  Hancock nodded. “Thank you, director. The Secret Service will see you out.”

  Director Bell looked up from his papers as the door closed behind Lay. “You foresee problems, Mr. President?”

  It took Hancock a moment to respond. “If Israel gets word of the Iranian biological capability, yes. You know how things have been for the last two years, Lawrence. Ever since Prime Minister Shamir’s election.”

  Bell nodded. “The mood has been rebellious, to say the least. Expanding Israeli settlements, reoccupying the Gaza strip, sending troops into Lebanon twice,” he continued, ticking them off on his fingers. “Of course, then again, his party swept into power on the heels of the Hamas ambush that took out a half-dozen mid-level Israeli diplomats in the West Bank. He was elected as a hard-liner, and he’s lived up to his campaign promises. And who can blame him?”

  “I can,” Hancock said quietly. So quietly, in fact, that Bell wasn’t sure he had heard correctly.

  “Excuse me, Mr. President?”

  “I said, ‘I can’,” the President repeated, anger creeping into his voice. “His government has made nothing but trouble for me and my plans for peace in the Middle East. You study the intelligence reports, Lawrence. I’m sure you’ve noticed how oil spikes every time that blamed Jew makes a move. Here in the States, gas hit nine dollars a gallon last week and my poll numbers have fallen off proportionally.”

  A brief nod from the DNI indicated that he had noticed. “I’m afraid, Mr. President, that your reelection campaign does not fall within my purview. Probably something you should take up with Ian.”

  Bell looked up to find the President staring at him, a cold, steady gaze. It was a moment before Hancock spoke. “Don’t patronize me, Lawrence. Don’t ever make that mistake. Just do your job and make sure the Israelis don’t learn about the bio-weapon from the CIA.”

  3:47 P.M. Tehran Time

  The Alborz Mountains

  Shielding the lens with a careful hand, Thomas swept the valley once again with his binoculars. Nothing. As empty and desolate as it had been ever since their arrival.

  The young men of the peshmerga had been straining at their leash for hours, begging Badir for permission to go down into the village.

  The old Kurd remained implacable. He knew his enemy far too well to give into the emotion—the despair of seeing their kinsmen lay unburied.

  Still nothing. Thomas lowered the binoculars, only too aware that he would be going into that valley soon. He bit his lip, steeling himself against the terror within. The job must be done.

  Estere stirred at his side, looking up at him from her prone position by the sniper rifle. “You’re going, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice curiously brittle.

  Unable to speak, he nodded, glancing over into her dark eyes.

  “It scares you, does it not?”

  “What does?” Thomas asked, once more taken off-guard by her bluntness.

  “Death.�
�

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Doesn’t it everybody?”

  She seemed to take the question seriously. “The wise men say that to be a Kurd is to look Death in the eye. It has been that way since the days of my fathers. As Allah has willed it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you’re going anyway?”

  “Don’t seem to have many other options,” Thomas sighed, reaching for the rifle that lay at his side.

  “I once heard that courage is being scared, but saddling up anyway.”

  Her words brought a smile to his face as he recognized the quote.

  “Too many American movies,” he exclaimed, laughing as he punched her lightly in the shoulder. “I needed that. The good old Duke.”

  Her eyes softened and she reached over, putting her hand in his. “I wish you weren’t going.”

  Thomas looked away across the mountains, towering stark and wild against the afternoon sky. There seemed to be nothing to say. Words could not express the emotions roiling through his heart. Life seemed so sweet, so precious, here at it’s end.

  He looked back to see her angrily wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. His arms opened to her and she fell against him, her body shaking with noiseless sobs as the long-dammed tears broke forth.

  “It’s okay,” Thomas whispered, hugging her to him as he repeated the meaningless lie. “It’s all gonna be okay.”

  She looked into his eyes and her upturned face was wet with tears. She seemed about to speak, but the words never came.

  Her face was only inches from his own and it seemed so natural. He bent down and kissed her, tasting the salt of tears on her lips. She responded with a desperate passion, her arms circling around his neck and holding him close.

  Someone cleared his throat behind the couple and Thomas extricated himself from her embrace to find Sirvan standing about five paces off, a distinctly uncomfortable look on his face.

  “I will accompany you into the village tonight,” her brother remarked stiffly. “Two men can work faster than one.”

  Then he was gone, disappearing back up the mountain path.

  Thomas leaped to his feet, the rifle in his hand as he hurried after him. He caught up with Sirvan before the young Kurd could rejoin the main body of fighters.

  “Look,” Thomas began, feeling suddenly awkward. “I didn’t mean—I know what you must think—”

  Sirvan cut him off before he could even figure out what to say. “I am not an Arab, Thomas. It is none of my concern. If Estere finds your advances unwelcome, she will kill you herself. Anything I might feel inclined to do would be entirely superfluous…”

  8:43 A.M. Eastern Time

  Freedom Baptist Church

  Cypress, Virginia

  There were few places in the earth where Harry felt truly at peace. The church he had attended ever since boyhood was one of them.

  As he drove in, he found himself marveling once more at the atmosphere of the old church. The building had started life as the church of a Methodist circuit-rider back in the 1800s, a marvelously simple structure.

  A single car sat in the parking lot, in the pastor’s space. That was to be expected—the service didn’t start for over an hour.

  Harry walked into the auditorium, finding it empty, as he had figured it would be. The lights were off, a single shaft of sunlight streaming in from the eastern window to fall directly upon the altar.

  He smiled. It might have been by design of the architect, but in that moment it seemed remarkably providential.

  Walking forward, he fell to his knees before the altar. He was so very, very tired, the stress of the Iranian mission and the guilt of losing a team member weighing upon his shoulders.

  “Dear Lord,” he began simply, his voice trailing off into silent prayer. Here in the quiet, kneeling in the sunlight, it all came pouring out.

  How long he knelt there, he never would know, but when he rose, it was as though a weight had been removed from his shoulders. A reassurance, perhaps.

  His beliefs had never been a hindrance to his mission—not in the way some might have thought. Rather they strengthened his resolve. Some might have called his worldview simplistic, but not anyone that truly knew him. In the perpetually clouded world of espionage, he clung to one fundamental truth: Evil existed to be destroyed.

  Knowing that, everything else became clear.

  There in the stillness, he suddenly felt a presence behind him, the knowledge that someone was there striking home with the certainty of death.

  He turned quickly, his hand flickering inside his suit toward the Colt secured in a shoulder holster beneath his jacket.

  “Good morning. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

  Harry withdrew his hand, his face relaxing into a smile as he recognized the figure in the back of the auditorium. “No problem, pastor. I had just finished.”

  Pastor Scott emerged from the shadows, still in his shirtsleeves, adjusting a microphone to his lapel. “You’ve noticed.”

  “Noticed what?” Harry asked.

  “The peace. This old church has seen many a battle over the years, but it’s still as peaceful as the first time I walked through the doors. ‘The peace of God, which passeth all understanding.’”

  Harry nodded. “Yeah. I had.”

  “I’m glad you could join us,” the older man remarked, laying a hand on Harry’s shoulder. If he could feel the straps of the holster, he gave no sign.

  “Plans changed,” Harry replied simply. “I’m flying out again tonight.”

  “I’ll be praying for you.”

  Harry turned, looking the pastor in the eye. They both fought evil, in their own way. Both had seen the dark side of battle. And they regarded each other with the respect of comrades-in-arms. “And I for you…”

  9:02 A.M.

  Langley, Virginia

  The slippery slope. In better times, during his college days at Princeton, Michael Shapiro had dismissed the concept as archaic, a throw-back to the old notions of moral absolutes—right and wrong.

  They had been good days, heady times. Looking back he realized he had been just like every other young man. The world on a string. Before the climb to power.

  Before his own feet had hit that legendary slope. The Deputy Director’s Suburban slowed to a stop at the first checkpoint of the complex that was the Central Intelligence Agency, and Shapiro sighed, leaning against the back seat of the SUV as his driver handed out their identification.

  If a man could see the end of the road, he would never be tempted to sin. The DD(I) passed a hand over his eyes, remembering the words of a priest from his childhood in Boston. The simple life he had left behind in search of power.

  His phone rang and his body tensed, dread coursing through his veins. A look at the screen confirmed his worst fears.

  That was just the trouble. No man could see the end of the road.

  “Hello.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Just arriving at Langley,” Shapiro replied, wiping a sweaty palm against the knee of his suit pants. “Unfinished business to sort out before I join my family for mass.”

  “God will have to wait,” the voice replied with a short, barking laugh. “The Iranian ambassador to the United Nations is in D.C. You need to arrange a meeting with him.”

  “When?”

  “Today. Within the next two hours, if possible.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Make it happen, Shapiro.”

  5:47 P.M. Local Time

  Eilat Airport

  Eilat, Israel

  The Gulfstream IV taxied to a stop behind a large hangar, the steps folding down out of the business jet almost before the engines had shut down.

  A tall, dark-haired man in the slacks and a sports jacket of a vacationing businessman emerged, striding down the stairs with the air of a conqueror.

  The mechanic working underneath the Learjet in an adjacent hangar paused to stare appreciatively at the young woman on the b
usinessman’s arm, watching as she turned to her companion, laughing artlessly at his joke.

  A vision of beauty. With an envious sigh, the mechanic reached for his wrench and went back to work. The girl in the sundress. Tourists…

  The girl’s laughter faded as they turned ‘round the corner of the hangar. “We’re clear,” she whispered to her companion.

  Gideon Laner toggled his lip mike. “Time to roll, Yossi. Where are you?”

  “I’ve got eyes on you, boss. We’re parked at your nine o’clock. See the green SUV?”

  “Roger,” Gideon replied. “Coming to you.”

  He wrapped an affectionate arm around the young woman’s waist and led her across the parking lot, laughing like a couple very much in love.

  The first stage of the mission was a success…

  10:08 A.M. Eastern Time

  NCS Operations Center

  Langley, Virginia

  There. Ron Carter’s hand flicked the mouse cursor across the screen, double-clicking on a Deployment folder.

  The folder opened in a separate window and he ran two fingers through his hair, a nervous tic common to his moments of anxiety.

  The phone rang, jarring him from his concentration. He grabbed it and tucked it between ear and shoulder, his eyes running down the database index that filled the screen.

  “Yes? Yes, Stacy, include Morgan in the hourlies—he’s cleared for CRITIC effective last Wednesday. It’s time he got brought up to speed. Yes, I understand.”

  A line caught his attention and everything else went blank as he focused in on the screen before. Yes. Yes!

  “I’ve got it!” he exclaimed, ignoring a confused query from the party on the other end of the line.