If Preacher had to guess, he would peg Fuchs' kill count well north of 200. Fuchs never talked about completed missions. He remained a mysterious stoic character. But months and even years between time together indicated to Preacher that Fuchs had a life he disappeared into. He had a home and maybe a family out there that he kept only to and for himself. But undoubtedly, his violent mentor paid a price for this work, this vocation, just as Preacher did. One never leaves this job at the office.
If they were ever to face each other in battle, the outcome would most certainly be uncertain until the end. That would never happen. In fact, Preacher, or better Lance, owed his life to Fuchs. The elder ghost carried a shot up understudy over his shoulder off the tiny island of Tapul in the Philippines across the water to medical attention. That event changed Lance forever. It severed the two parts of the whole that comprised his mental being. Preacher and Lance. Lance and Preacher.
And Fuchs was there, here, sitting beside Abbie in the LeBaron.
"Location?" Preacher said into the microphone hidden in his ear.
"60 yards behind you."
"Of course." Preacher chuckled. No way Fuchs was leaving the fun. There was simply no better tracker or hunter in the world. Good that he was sharing a sliver of that skill with Abbie now.
"You got him?" Fuchs asked.
"I do."
With that, Preacher reached his arm outside the vehicle's window and smacked the door twice just as the individual in the shadows reached a position directly across from the car. The man stopped, looked at him and then in both directions up and down the street.
The boys were tearing it up at the end of the G N' R song roaring in his head as the individual stepped off the curb. A streetlight at the corner 50 yards ahead cast just enough light on the man's face to reveal his identity. Al-Barwani. He was in the middle of the street about eight steps from Preacher in the parked Chevy when he suddenly stopped. Recognition flared across his face as he saw the somewhat evil smile on Preacher's face behind the wheel.
Can't be sure, but it looked like Preacher winked at the world's third most wanted man on the international terrorist watch list right before he squeezed his finger and put two silenced 9mm bullets into al-Barwani's gut.
The evil grin on his face illuminated by the silenced muzzle flash. The thwack, thwack of the silenced bullets echoed back and forth across the street, bouncing off the buildings.
Now, two gut shots by themselves won't kill a person, at least not immediately. They hurt like hell. Make a person scream and flail and call for mama. But al-Barwani didn't scream, didn't flail. He just dropped to knees and then onto his butt. He put his hands down to keep from falling prone on the ground in the middle of the street.
Preacher instantly knew why. Really it was Lance who knew this stuff. Preacher knew because Lance was a smarty-pants who remembers everything he sees. Everything. Annoying really.
Al-Barwani was collapsed in the middle of the street because that second bullet Preacher fired from 16-feet away traveled through his skin then stomach then through spinal cord and out through more skin. Piercing, either completely or partially severing the spinal cord resulted in all nerve traffic below the wound stopping. Without the electrical current from nerves, muscles don't function. The terrorist was done, not going anywhere. Paralyzed as all the muscles below the wound stopped receiving nerve impulses.
Preacher shook his head and chuckled. Not out of pure evil, although that was in there, just at the fact that he didn't have to chase this guy for miles or hours. He wasn't required to sprint down alleys, up flights and flights of stairs, through fields or down mountainsides. All he had to do this time was drive to a point ahead of his prey, park the car, wait for a couple of minutes, put some bullets into a terrorist wannabe and watch him slouch to the asphalt.
He opened the driver side door, jumped out of the Chevy and stepped toward Barwani slumped in the street.
"That was too easy. You are supposedly one of the world's great killers." Preacher spoke in Arabic. "Dozens of people killed in multiple explosions. I expected more Moustafa."
"Sorry to disappoint," al-Barwani replied. He was about to continue.
"God is greater. I know. You are ready to die for your cause, blah, blah, blah." Preacher stepped closer with silenced Sig Sauer extended and aimed at the terrorist's head.
"Of course. We all are."
"All? Al Qaeda, right. You are all Bin Laden's soldiers now. Rich boy Saudi prick buys a few guns and anti-aircraft rockets for the Mujahedeen fighting Russians up in the mountains and you all swear allegiance to him and his fatwa. I could argue with you. Cite passage after passage in the Koran that dispels all of your screwed up beliefs, but that wouldn't change a thing. You are a committed warrior in a holy war, a jihad. And now you die." He stepped in closer.
All kinds of people have tried throughout the past decade and even before Lance was recruited to the CIA dark side, to overcome, to supersede universal law. Can't be done. A critically injured Moustafa al-Barwani thought he would give it a try and pulled a knife from his belt with his right hand. He reached his left hand into his jacket pocket at the same time.
Preacher just watched. He watched and tapped his toe to the final heavy beats of the 4 minute, 40-second Guns N' Roses tune. He hoped another song by the big-haired 80's rockers was next in his cranial jukebox.
Fuchs came strolling up a few feet behind Preacher. He stood in front of the Chevy.
"Moustafa, what are you going to do with that knife? You can't do much with a severed spine." Preacher spoke to the man crumpled in the street.
"Ooh, severed spine?" Fuchs breathed in as he whispered. "Damn."
Al-Barwani looked at Preacher and held the knife up. "If my legs and feet had not left me, I would slaughter you infidel. You belong in hell with all the others."
"Of course, of course. And you should go to heaven for that bomb in Paris and the other bomb in Milan and then that one on that train outside of Athens. Hundreds dead but you should go to heaven for jobs well done, innocent people slaughtered, correct?"
All this talking was not Preacher's style.
He never wasted motions or moments in combat. The fact that he had let this worthless piece of humanity live another 30 seconds was strange. That is until a car turned the corner and came up on this scene in the middle of the street. Preacher held out an open hand to the vehicle that came to sudden screeching halt. The collapsed terrorist and the man standing over him with gun pointed at forehead were suddenly blazing in the headlights of the vehicle stopped just 20-feet away. Perfect.
The terrorist opened his mouth to scream. Preacher beat him to it.
"I know. I know. Allahu akbar!" And Preacher put a clean little hole in al-Barwani's forehead that didn't come out so clean when it exploded through the back of his skull with a good bid of skull and brain matter accompanying it. "God is greater."
The driver of the car probably freaked out something serious. The car was suddenly jammed into reverse and the tires screeched again as the engine roared and the vehicle took off in the direction it came from moments earlier.
He turned and walked to Fuchs. "How bout that? We came here for four a-holes who trained with Bin Laden's gang up in the mountains of Afghanistan and we end up taking out a top-fiver on the watch list."
"We?"
"Yes, we. You and me. Doing it old school north of the border. Like two Mounties."
"We were supposed to make somewhat of a public splash. This pile in the middle of the street will make a few headlines." Fuchs looked around at the buildings, windows, sightlines. The two of them casually got into the Chevy. "You know what this means?" Fuchs asked Preacher.
"That I get a dead terrorist gold star?"
"Nope. It means I have to take out number two on the terrorist list to knock you back down a peg."
"That sounds a bit like the beginnings of a friendly wager." Preacher smiled at his mentor as he put the Chevy in gear and pulled out into the street le
aving one of the world's pre-eminent mass murderers in a bloody, messy smear in the center of the Toronto street. Like the vermin that he was.
Over the next few minutes as he maneuvered the nighttime Toronto city streets in a stolen terrorist car, Preacher again broke one of Lance's strict rules and talked on the phone while driving. He redialed 9-1-1 and reported another body in the streets and spelled the dead guy's name for the nice emergency services operator, making sure he wrote it down and repeated it back.
He also called Canadian Intelligence and told them about al-Barwani. And lastly, he called the desk phone of a reporter back in the states. It was a New York Times reporter whose writing style he enjoyed reading. Has that punch. Preacher left a message on the woman's voice mail that told a short tale of international terrorism and Osama Bin Laden and Afghanistan and dead guys in the streets of Toronto. It would make for an exciting article; one that would reverberate nicely all around the globe when the reporter got the message the next morning and produced a nice article citing "unnamed sources."
This was a significantly different game than any he'd played before. And the game's rules changed immeasurably just minutes ago with the appearance of al-Barwani. Call it a stroke of luck. Call it what you will. Stumbling upon one of the world's most wanted men would allow this mission to reach new heights much faster than anyone hoped.
Preacher glanced in the review mirror of the stolen Chevy at the headlights following them. "What do you think?" His question could have been about anything, everything. But Fuchs is a pro and one of the few humans in the world who gets Preacher, at least a little bit.
"I like her. Fast learner."
"Fast enough?"
"Just don't get her killed. If you rush it, you'll lose her."
Preacher shook his head. "Don't rush it. You mean, like don't throw the newbie to the wolves like folks did to a 21-year old a decade ago?"
"Please." Fuchs' turn to shake his head. "That freak was ready day one; before day one."
Chapter 31
Wyrick picked up the handset of the ringing phone on his 6-foot folding table desk after the third ring.
"You saw?" The voice unmistakable.
"Yep. Still images and video. They are making their way out to the media."
"Yes. On CNN. Watching it right now. Amazing thing really, number three on the OBL list being there."
"Evidently, he let the young woman pick this one. She spotted the subjects they were tracking in another operation." Wyrick took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. It was 1:34 a.m. He liked the fact that calls on this phone were scrambled beyond all surveillance recognition. The digital revolution brought with it the ability to scramble every word he spoke. It extended to the external communications node a half-mile from the CIA's Langley headquarters. The only way someone could snoop on his calls on this line would be to capture the conversation by way of some audio snooping device. A sophisticated computer algorithm digitally scrambled anything spoken into the phone and carried through phone lines before it left his office. Beautiful stuff.
"Sounds like she is paying off already. Have to meet her sometime." Seibel whispered.
"She's raw. But has that thing."
"Couldn't quite make out the shooter."
"Nope. Beard, long hair, glasses and a hat made it nearly impossible to tell who the killer was."
"The killer got what was coming to him in the middle of that street. The shooter, on the other hand, undoubtedly saved a bunch of lives by taking that piece of trash out."
"Yes. And a message sent, I do believe." Wyrick leaned back in his chair and lifted his feet up onto the table.
"Agreed." Seibel, the master in exile, disconnected the line.
Chapter 32
She looked up from the rolling bedside table upon which her tiny daughter was coloring a beautiful rainbow with a million colors. She loved how Jenny stuck her tongue out between pursed lips as she concentrated ever so diligently on the quality of her Crayon masterpiece.
On the muted television screen hanging on the wall, the talking head female on CNN International spoke into the camera. Beside her, a grainy image of a man standing over another man in the street hung on the screen. The CGI words on the screen read Most Wanted Terrorist Murdered in Toronto. A few moments later, the video began playing, words on the screen stated 'Caution: This video contains graphic images.'
It was granular and the details were lacking, but the video clearly showed one man standing over another man in the middle of the street pointing a gun at the head of the guy on the ground. Best guess, the video was captured from a nearby ATM or a store's security camera. A car had obviously come upon the scene because the two men were brightly illuminated while everything else was dark. The man standing turns his head back from the direction of the camera, says a few words and then shoots the guy on the ground right through his forehead. A dead hole.
The video froze for a few moments and then zoomed in on the shooter's blurry face. If it wasn't so unbelievable, one might think the man turned purposely toward this camera. His face was indistinct. A thick beard covered most of it. Dark glasses hid eyes. Long hair spilled out from underneath a ball cap. The man could be anyone.
Marta smiled as she turned from the television to her tiny concentrating daughter in her hospital bed oblivious to the carnage and graphic images on the television screen. "Krasivaya," Marta whispered in Russian. So beautiful.
She didn't tell her tiny angel that she just saw the little girl's father on television. If Lance, or better yet, if Preacher was captured on video killing a high-value target terrorist in the middle of the street in Toronto, he was on another unbelievably dangerous mission.
And the fact that she, and millions of others around the world, just watched the footage meant this kill was done for effect. This was a message. And decoding it didn't take much work -- "we're coming for you and when we find you, we will kill you."
Chapter 33
"How the hell did Barwani get into Canada?" It was Brewer and he was asking the wrong question. It wasn't how. It was why.
The representatives of the five agencies comprising the Bin Laden Station were presenting their latest findings to a special Congressional counter-terrorism committee. Wyrick was there representing the CIA's Special Activities Division. He knew this was a near total waste of time. But he might get a tidbit or two he could apply to field activities.
And by field activities, he meant the international public-display kill mission Preacher and Fuchs were embarked upon. Life is funny. History often repeats itself.
The utter irony of the current mission was not lost in the least on Wyrick. He'd been doing this too long. He was there nearly thirty years ago for the second incarnation of the Black Angel with Fuchs. And his digital fingerprints were all over the scene when the ghost of Lance Priest became the third Black Angel five years ago after the World Trade Center bombing.
The simple yet unique fact that mythical Black Angels two and three were working together right now on another kill list was amazing really. Amazing. Wyrick shook his head ever so slightly sitting near the end of one of the way too long U-shape table in one of the seemingly thousands of meeting rooms at Langley.
The 21 people assembled for this meeting were abuzz. The news out of Toronto and the videos released of the cold-blooded murder in the middle of the street were all anyone could talk about. So far, an ATM across the street, a store's surveillance camera and a traffic camera at the intersection just down the street all captured the killing.
Public display indeed.
"So, do we think this was government or competing terrorist organization that did this?" It was an FBI representative asking the group. He raised his voice over the din.
Brewer cleared his throat and replied, "Initial information leads to this being a government-sponsored assassination. Most likely a Middle Eastern nation." Wyrick stayed quiet. He knew the proper questions were coming.
"And where did we get this analysis?" NSA aske
d.
"Al-Barwani was wanted by several nations for an array of killings and bombings, including Libya, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. He had alienated virtually every nation state by signing on with Bin Laden." Brewer provided a B.S. answer.
"Anything popping on the identity of the shooter?" DIA - Defense Intelligence Agency - asked.
"Nothing yet. The images we've now all seen are grainy, lacking detail. Video and graphics experts are analyzing now and running them through the photo inventory databases." Brewer stepped back to his computer and forwarded the PowerPoint to a screen with three blown up images of Preacher pulled from the videotaped killing. "As you can see, we don't have much to work with. The beard, glasses, hat. Only thing we have solid here is the shooter is left-handed."
Wyrick brought his left forefinger to his teeth and bit the side of it to keep from chuckling. Left-handed. They had nothing. Unfortunately, like usual.
He looked up at the splotchy video screen captures projected at the front of the room. Hell, he couldn't see Preacher. The guy could always just disappear, vanish right before your eyes. A chameleon.
"What if it was one of ours?" NSA asked. The NSA rep turned and looked at Wyrick. In the three-plus years now since Seibel's unceremonious departure from the agency, Wyrick had become the de facto go-to guy from CIASAD - Special Activities Division. He didn't care for the attention, but knew it came with the gig when he accepted it.
"We had no official knowledge of this or of al-Barwani being in North America. We're thrilled that one of the world's most-wanted killers and known confidant of Bin Laden is dead, but can't take responsibility." Wyrick had become skilled in the way of detailed non-answers. Basically the unofficial language of Washington D.C.
The FBI rep was next, "What if this is not government? What if this is some kind of payback or message? This is one of Bin Laden's top lieutenants."
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