The Forgotten Soldier

by Brad Taylor

  “Well, honestly, he did it on his own.”

  His father’s answer surprised him. “At least he tried something, for as little good it did. Does he understand what the CIA is?”

  “Father, I have a man attempting to kill me and my friends. He’s already succeeded twice. Our intersection is Nikos, and he said the killer was tied to a CIA contact. It was how Nikos had met the man. Nikos was following her, and agreed to help us help eliminate him. After the meeting with the CIA.”

  “And yet you failed. For the second time.”

  “Father, we didn’t know they would have an entire team there. We just thought it was a meeting between two people. It was a way to stem the bleeding, without exposure. We weren’t doing anything to the CIA agent.”

  Haider saw his father lean back, the screen making his actions jerky with the weak connection. Sharif rubbed his face, then said, “You broke up a CIA meeting. A meeting you knew was CIA. Why do you now think the team was out to get you? Of course they had a team. That attack on your friend wasn’t because they were hunting you. It was because you interrupted a meeting with the CIA.”

  “We didn’t interrupt anything. We were going to track the man that’s doing the killing after the meeting. They struck first, without us doing anything. Khalid said that they tried to capture him. Does that sound like a team providing protection?”

  “Shut up and use your head for a change. I swear, how you survived in Afghanistan is beyond me. Khalid entered the park. Khalid attempted to interdict the meeting. How can you possibly say they were out to capture him? Do you mean they actually set up an enormously complicated trap, feeding Nikos information, knowing that he would feed it to you, and that you would be stupid enough to react?”

  In the cold light of day, his father’s logic crushed the conspiracy theories from the discussions the night before. Maybe they were reading too much into the attack. But that didn’t alter the fact that two of his friends were dead. One for sure, and another who had simply disappeared.

  He said, “Father, you might be right, but I want to leave here. Yesterday may have been my fault, but there is still a team chasing us. Still someone who wants to see me dead.”

  Sharif shut that line of discussion down. “No son of mine is a coward. At least your friend Khalid has the courage to attempt to capture the American, even if he failed. You will not flee from the operations simply because it has become dangerous. Do you understand?”

  The words were as abrupt as a physical slap. Coward? Who said anything about fear? He said, “No, I don’t understand. Staying here, waiting to get attacked, is stupid. It’s not helping anything. Courage and stupidity are two different things. In fact, it might be hurting the very mission you want. I should go to Oslo to prepare.”

  Tarek, his father’s confidant, showed the hint of a smile. Haider took it as a good sign. Sharif waved his hand as if he’d had enough of the discussion. He said, “You can’t go to Oslo until you know when the meeting is to occur.”

  “I think I’ll learn that today. I have a meeting with Secretary Billings today, and I think the peace talks are soon.”

  “Do you have the shahid? Is he ready?”

  “Yes. He’s acting as my driver, the same thing he will do in Oslo. The problem is, he has no way to get into the country. He has a passport from Afghanistan, and no visa for Norway. We paid for the documents before we knew where the peace meetings were going to occur.”

  “Go back to Nikos. Money is no object. Pay what he wants.”

  “Nikos has disappeared. He won’t answer the phone or the email he gave us. Khalid thinks the park mission scared him and he’s gone underground. Either way, he’s no help.”

  Sharif thought for a moment, then said, “Talk to Secretary Billings. Tell him your predicament. Tell him you have a confidant well versed in Afghanistan affairs, both from the Taliban and from the government. He’s your inside man, and he’s necessary if they truly want an unbiased look from Qatar. Tell him he has an Afghanistan passport and that he’s going to act as your driver to deflect attention, but he needs a visa. The government of Qatar can’t help, given how secret this meeting is.”

  “Father, he’s not going to provide a visa from Norway for an unknown man from Afghanistan.”

  “Yes, he will. He likes the intrigue. He wants to be secretive, thinking he’s manipulating events outside of the primary participants. He wants to do something like this, or he’d have never asked for your help. Trust me, I have dealt with men like him many times.”

  Haider heard the words, and for the first time in his entire adult life, he felt pride in being his father’s son, and admiration at the Machiavellian manipulation proposed. His father understood the levers to pull without ever having met Secretary Billings, and Haider, having worked with the secretary, knew what his father said rang true.

  Haider said, “I can ask, and see what he says.”

  “He’ll say yes. He’s infatuated with his own importance. He wants to report back to his president that he’s in control and manipulating events for the United States. Make no mistake, he believes he needs you more than you need him, and I think it is absolute poetry that we will use him to facilitate the means of his own destruction.”

  Haider said, “Okay. I’ll do my best. What about the car? Is it ready?”

  “Yes. I’ve arranged for you to pick it up. Just tell me when.”

  Haider nodded and said, “We’d better go. I have a bit of a drive. I hope you’re right about the American secretary of state.”

  “I am, but the results will depend on you. If you fail and cannot get your shahid to travel with you, you can be the one who drives the vehicle.”

  Haider laughed, but the look on his father’s face left doubt as to whether he was making a joke.

  65

  Guy found himself nodding off, his head actually hitting the driver’s-side window. He snapped awake, looking toward the small guard shack. He saw a blip of activity from the bored Greek national inside. The man was staring at the ramp leading under the building. Something was happening, the guard shack alone belying that this was a simple office building.

  It would seem strange to an American who was used to seeing the power projection of the United States overseas, with embassies full of flag waving and imposing blocks of granite, but the Embassy of Qatar was located on the third floor of an office complex built over a bike shop and auto parts store, out on a lonely stretch of road in the northern part of Athens. One wouldn’t even know the building had anything to do with Qatar except for a lone flag flying on the roof and a restricted entryway guarded by the Greeks.

  Like a lot of countries in the world, Qatar had no need to advertise their presence. In fact, doing so would only open them up to security risks they had every reason to avoid. And so they had an embassy inside an office building, with minimal indication it even existed. It worked fine for them. Unlike the United States, there wasn’t exactly a line of people fighting for a visa from Qatar.

  Guy focused on the guard’s actions. When he saw him press a button, and the drop bar to the concrete ramp rose, he leaned forward, hand on the ignition. As he saw an Audi crest the steep drive from the underground garage, he turned the keys. When he saw the man in the passenger seat, he pulled out, tagging two cars behind.

  He dragged anchor as they moved through traffic, going steadily north. He thought the car would head back into the city, but it didn’t, and he regretted sitting and waiting, wasting his chance. Infiltrating the underground garage beneath the building would have been a significant challenge, but he might have missed his opportunity. While they didn’t advertise their presence, Qatar had invested heavily in security. He could probably penetrate, but he was positive he’d be on camera after the killings. Something for the police to tear apart. So he’d opted to wait.

  The Audi drove steadily, now heading west. Thirty minutes later, Guy wo
ndered where it was going. He thought it was to one of the suburbs surrounding the city, perhaps to continue their criminal activity—something he would really love to interdict—but the car entered 75, a major highway that threaded out of the city to the hinterlands of the rest of Greece. Clearly, they had a purpose, and it wasn’t in Athens.

  Guy stayed behind them, the trip passing an hour and the car continuing on the highway. His mind drifted, thinking of the endgame. Thinking of the destruction, and the follow on, or the lack thereof.

  He was going to complete his mission—kill his man—and get nothing from it. Nothing but revenge. He had the safe-deposit key, but couldn’t access it by himself.

  They drove on, steadily going northwest, the road stretching out, passing tourist buses and making him wonder where they were headed.

  His mind toyed with the mission over and over, trying to feel the vindication he had before. He thought about Pike Logan. About the meeting on the ferry. He had so wanted them to join him. So wanted absolution. Pike, of all people, understood what he was doing. Pike had lost family, and had exacted his revenge. Nobody talked about it out loud, but everyone knew he’d killed a man in interrogation isolation. A devil who was a terrorist and deserved it. But also a man who’d murdered Pike’s family.

  Pike was a stone-cold killer. An Operator whom some people in the Taskforce feared but everyone respected, and Guy believed he was the same. He knew it. He just wanted someone else to tell him it was so.

  Pike’s face sprang into his memory from when he’d walked away on the ferry. A mixture of fear and pity. He did not want to be remembered that way. He didn’t deserve to be remembered that way.

  Two hours into the trip, blindly following the Audi in front, winding into the mountains of northern Greece, he made his decision. He’d kill the fucks who’d murdered his brother, then turn himself in. He still had the key to the safe-deposit box, and he was sure it would vindicate him. Once the Taskforce found the information it held, they’d back off.

  He was in the right. Just like Pike.

  He came out of his thoughts when the Audi pulled to the side of the road, into one of many parking slots that had appeared while he was lost in thought. He passed by it, ignoring the passengers and staring straight ahead, finding the next available spot on the small, two-lane road.

  He pulled in, then assessed where he was.

  A tourist spot, of that he was sure because of the number of cars. He glanced around, and found a sign just outside of the parking area, proclaiming the hours of a museum.

  Delphi.

  The target had parked downhill from the archeological site of the famous Delphi ruins, but why?

  The answer came as soon as he thought of the question: The target was conducting a personal meet, and using the expansive grounds as cover.

  Which meant they’d all leave the car.

  He picked up his cloned key fob, rubbing it with his thumb like a talisman.

  Perfect.

  66

  The encrypted tunnel for our computer hookup made Colonel Kurt Hale’s voice sound a bit mechanical, but it was doing little to hide his anger. He was pissed, and not in the usual “Pike will be Pike” way.

  “Before I cut your nuts off and serve them to the Oversight Council on a platter, I want to be sure: You saw some people you thought were bad, and then interdicted them? In the hopes of interrogating an Arab that you had no Omega authority to capture? And the asshole escaped? Did I just summarize that correctly?”

  Wow. When he put it that way, it did sound sort of bad.

  We’d come back from the operation a day ago, and I’d opted to wait for the scheduled contact to report, mainly because we hadn’t captured anyone and none of our team had any injuries. We’d escaped clean, and I was fairly sure that the Arab wasn’t filing a police report. For her part, Carly would say nothing, as she was operating outside of the CIA, and so I’d decided that no flash message was necessary. A report right after wouldn’t have altered anything on my end, but it could have altered a vote on Alpha authority from the Oversight Council. Because of that, I’d decided that reporting early wasn’t in the team’s best interest, or Guy’s. All I’d catch was the wrath of Kurt Hale, and I could wait for that. Hell, it wasn’t like he was going to tell me anything new. I’d already had a hammering from the teammates at the after-action review.

  Back in the hotel, we, as a team, held a clinical, antiseptic inspection of every detail of the mission to learn what went right, and what could have gone better, the point being to spread any lessons across the force. As team leader, I made sure that nobody was immune from criticism—me included—but also that nobody was attacked out of anger or animosity.

  Five minutes in, I was thinking maybe this one wasn’t that necessary, since the only consternation seemed to be my deciding to hit the guys in the park in the first place. Knuckles was on my side, with Jennifer saying it was absolutely counterproductive. Jennifer’s points—that we could have evacuated Carly without any drama, and we had no Omega authority for a takedown—were valid, but had it gone the other way, it would be a whole different conversation, which meant that it wasn’t worth dwelling on. But for some reason, Jennifer did.

  Brett backed up Jennifer, and poor Nick sat in the middle, afraid to commit either way. Jennifer really didn’t want to talk about the actions themselves, which piqued my interest. I certainly didn’t want to detail what had happened to me, but I did, because the team needed to know what they were up against with that Arab. It was embarrassing, but necessary, and I was curious why Jennifer was staying away from her fight, preferring to harp on the overarching decision.

  She was hiding something.

  I asked her to walk me through her part of the mission, and she did, which sounded pretty solid. She brought up some points about communication and flow, and it sounded fairly normal. Like the takedown hadn’t been any issue at all.

  I asked, “So how did Veep here get his face clocked?”

  Nick’s nose had been bloodied and he had a cut below his eye, meaning something hadn’t gone smoothly. Before he could speak, Jennifer defended him, saying, “He did just fine.”

  I looked at Nick, waiting. Embarrassed, he glanced at Jennifer, then said, “Okay, okay, I wasn’t ready. I lost control of my target and I almost cost both of us.”

  His hangdog face was almost comical. He looked like he was waiting on me to hand him a plane ticket home, not realizing it was the perfect answer, and that I was pleased. I could tell he’d already internalized the lessons and that the admission was very, very painful.

  There was nothing like thinking you’re the hero only to have to admit you’re a zero.

  Jennifer was glaring at me, daring me to tear into him, like I did it for sport. I realized she was still learning. Still thought these AARs were nothing more than an Alpha-male dick-measuring contest. It could be a teaching point for both of them.

  I smiled and said, “Well, at least your guy went down. I’m still chasing mine.”

  I saw the relief flood through him, and Knuckles gave me a wink. Jennifer looked a little shocked that I didn’t rip him apart, which I’d correct once we were in private. When I could rib her a little bit about her lost-puppy protective instincts. It wasn’t doing Nick any favors.

  After the AAR, we’d spent the rest of the time tracking Guy’s phone and spitballing various courses of action for bringing him in, waiting on the Oversight Council to give us our big ticket for the attempt: Alpha authority against the Arab contingent.

  We’d identified his hotel, then followed his phone signature around the city, just keeping tabs, but I never got the call from Kurt. Finally, I’d reached my window of contact with the Taskforce.

  When I reported in, the commo guy on the other end had said, “Hang on, Pike. Colonel Hale told me to get him when you called.” Which wasn’t what I wanted to hear. And now I was really
not hearing any love.

  I said, “Sir, okay, maybe it wasn’t the best decision, but you want Guy back, the Arab is on his target deck, he was hunting Carly because of her connection to Guy, and it was within my in extremis authority. It was a good call, but it didn’t work out.”

  “Didn’t work out. Really.”

  The sarcasm was so thick I could have put it on a bagel. I waited, mute.

  Kurt sighed, then looked at the ceiling. He returned to the screen and said, “So you didn’t bother to call in this little escapade because, why?”

  “Because it was no harm, no foul. It didn’t require a flash message.”

  “You mean because it would have affected the Council vote on giving you Alpha for the very Arab you attacked.”

  He wasn’t asking a question. I said, “Well, yeah, sir. I knew you’d have to report it.”

  He chuckled at my honesty, shaking his head. “Okay . . . you’d have been right. No way would they have given Alpha with those shenanigans. Especially with Billings on the vote.”

  I perked up. “Are you saying what I think you are? They did?”

  “Yeah. They did. President Warren weighed in, based on my judgment, which in hindsight looks a little suspect.”

  Brett knocked on the door, saying, “Coming in.”

  Kurt heard and said, “Who is it?”

  I said, “Brett,” then turned from the screen. “What’s up?”

  “Guy’s on the move again, and it’s way north. It’s a spike. He’s not running around the city anymore. Knuckles thinks he’s operational.”

  From the computer, Kurt said, “North where?”

  I scooted over, letting Brett slide into the screen. “Way north of Athens. Like two hours away.”

  “Near Delphi?”

  Brett looked startled and said, “Actually, yeah. Not ‘near’ Delphi. He’s stopped at the Delphi ruins.”