by JT Sawyer
The other mercenaries were out of sight below the second ridgeline where Mitch was perched. He crawled backwards with his rifle, making it to Dev’s location on the other side of the hill. Six hundred yards away was the interstate, its ribbon of traffic relatively light for a Monday morning.
“Perry Kovac—what did you have on him? What was his involvement in all of this again?”
“He has to be the one manipulating security footage and surveillance for the weapons to arrive here. All I know from the file I scanned is that the attacks are connected with Iranian terrorists or some proxy group.”
“That’s beyond even Perry’s clearance level.”
“Then he’s got someone like Monroe or someone higher up in D.C. pulling the strings. That’s the part I don’t have yet but it’s all here on this flash drive,” she said, patting her hand against her shirt pocket.
Mitch looked down at the interstate. “So, we’re just gonna run up to the white line on the blacktop and leap in when your pals come, eh? Is that the plan?” Mitch said, keeping his eyes focused in the direction of Perry and his men.
“You said you were a cowboy, right? I would’ve thought that that plan would suit you just fine.”
Fifty yards from the overpass, Mitch stopped and perched beside a fallen logjam of debris that was wedged under the steel girders of the bridge. He knew Perry and his men would be attacking them in an all-out effort to prevent their escape. Mitch just hoped that there would be no collateral damage above from motorists speeding along the interstate—that they would drive by never knowing the struggle for survival that was unfolding below them. How he envied them in this moment, with their faces pressed into a map of the Grand Canyon.
His mind shifted back to the drainage. There was a slight hint of a blond orb poking out from a cluster of tamarisk trees to the right. Mitch readied his rifle, waiting for a glimmer of confirmation on his target. A second later, the hulking brute’s head split apart, the skullcap flying off like a swift breeze had plucked it free. He heard Dev cycle another round into her rifle, surprised that she had beaten him to the shot but grateful for her marksmanship.
“That was Drake—a sniveling, disgusting son of a bitch who was Aeneid’s head of security.”
Mitch heard the screech of tires on the overpass. “Let’s go,” he said.
They used bounding moves to cover each other as they snaked their way up the concrete embankment to the guardrails until they were at the confluence of desert and interstate where a white SUV had just come to a stop. The passenger-side doors swung open, the faces of several dark-skinned men revealing themselves. Dev leapt into the front seat while Mitch paused for a second, unsure of what came next but knowing it had to be better than the alternative of remaining below. He climbed in, the rail-thin man taking Mitch’s rifle while the SUV sped off as quickly as it had arrived.
Mitch gulped in a deep breath, scanning the canyon below for any signs of Perry and his goons until they were clear of the region. He swung his head around to the driver, catching the cunningly familiar eyes in the rearview mirror of Anatoly Leitner.
Chapter 22
The vehicle sped north along I-17, hovering just over the speed limit. Mitch looked over the crew around him and then sank back into the seat, feeling the blast of air-conditioning flowing over him.
He peered ahead at the driver. For a man in his mid-sixties, who had endured a lifetime of combat, Anatoly was still remarkably fit. His massive calloused hands that resembled baseball mitts seemed mismatched with his lanky six-foot-two frame. Mitch had once heard from a fellow colleague of Anatoly’s that the man had over two dozen knife and bullet wounds on his body, though the stone-faced old warrior rarely spoke of his exploits. Despite this, the man looked like a grandfatherly figure who’d be more at home mowing the lawn than executing rescue missions in third-world hotspots.
Mitch could see the resemblance between father and daughter. Same rounded chin, slender nose, and those riveting brown eyes that could flare up in intensity, letting you know that you just fucked with the wrong person.
Dev and Anatoly began conversing in Hebrew, exchanging information on the events of the past few days since Dev left California. The other men were silent, scanning the terrain ahead like hawks bent on procuring a rabbit. The stout man beside Mitch had a caterpillar-like mustache that hung over his upper lip. The other one had a boyish, clean-cut face that resembled a college kid, though his scarred knuckles and furrowed hands indicated otherwise.
When father and daughter were done, Anatoly swiveled slightly in his seat and glanced at Mitch. “Good to see you, old friend. It’s been a long time. I am grateful for what you did to help Devorah.”
“Not as grateful as I’ll be when you tell me exactly what is going on and how you’re gonna make this right—I mean the fleeing-from-a-federal-manhunt part not the part about leading a small army of thugs to my buddy’s ranch, causing us to be hunted for two days.”
“We have much to talk about, it seems.” There was a long pause, as if the older man was leaving an opening in the conversation for Mitch to respond.
“So, Anatoly, maybe you can answer me this: your daughter tells me that you never got out of the game after you left the States,” Mitch said, still sore that the man had never kept in touch with him despite numerous attempts on Mitch’s part.
“There’s a place in Jordan called “The Tunnel of Souls,” said Anatoly, who never seemed to answer a question directly and had to relay a story. It had always irritated the hell out of Mitch but he had grown accustomed to it. The man continued, his eyes focused intently on the road but his mind drifting to another place. “This tunnel leads to the netherworld and requires that you pay with four years of your life here on Earth in order to have one day in purgatory having your questions answered.”
He looked at Mitch, casting a slight grin. “After I left here, I went into a partnership with several old Mossad colleagues. Together we focused on rescuing others from hellish dictatorships around the globe and building a trusted network of informants, particularly in Turkmenistan. It took me years of diligence…of patience…of the blood of my associates to unravel what you are now tied up in.” Anatoly glanced at the mountains in the distance. “Surely you must remember what it was like dipping your fingers into the covert world—where every alliance is to be questioned and where the man watching your back for years has just accepted an offer from a rival and wants you dead. Your government job couldn’t have driven those memories completely out of you.”
“You seemed to always fare better in that world than I did. Besides, I was in army special operations, not clandestine, off-the-books missions with some unaccountable shadow agency. There’s a big difference.”
“Both approaches are just tools for excising the cancer that grows in other nations opposed to our respective governments’ agendas. Your unit’s actions may have been more transparent and the after-effects observable but the end goal was the same as what I did: stabilizing or destabilizing regions to further Western might.”
“You always did have a way of putting things into a certain perspective. I left the military because our operational policies were starting to get a little too gray for me. I prefer a more black-and-white world.”
“Those days are gone, my friend. The modern world of global warfare is a sepulcher of half-truths driven by monetized agendas. Actually that’s not too different than warfare during any other time but now the currency is the welfare of entire nations versus just a cart full of gold or silk.”
“Yeah, well the way I see it, a soldier still has a choice in whether he buys into the system.”
Anatoly chuckled. “Aren’t you with the FBI—the very bastion of American self-righteousness?”
Mitch leaned his arms forward on his knees, glancing at the older man. “That’s right, and doing a damn fine job at upholding the law,” he said, trying to put force into the latter half of his reply.
“Good for you. The bureau should be gr
ateful to have such a dedicated warrior in its ranks.”
Mitch looked at him, trying to determine if the man was being sarcastic or serious. He turned away and sighed, unsure if he’d still have any kind of job ever again after today.
The man sitting next to Mitch reached in the back seat, removing some t-shirts from a duffle bag. He handed one to Mitch and another to Dev. “Will help with blending in better, yes,” said the man with a slight accent. He then introduced himself as Petra while the other fellow muttered his name in a gravelly voice as if coughing it up: “Daniel.”
Mitch removed his soiled vest and then peeled off the sweaty black shirt that clung to his frame. He donned the blue t-shirt which had the expression, I Survived the Grand Canyon written across it with the image of boot prints heading into the sunset. He just smirked and bit his lip at the irony.
“So, you boys former Mossad too or just handpicked by Anatoly himself?”
Petra looked forward at Anatoly for his directions. After the older man nodded in approval, Petra replied, “I was Mossad for six years but then was discharged for medical injury to my shoulder. Now I work for Mr. Leitner, doing comms and intel.”
The other man stroked his considerable mustache while replying as if the action of grooming conjured up his answer. “Much time in Mossad. Now do weapons training for new recruits with Mr. Leitner’s organization.”
Mitch glanced up front, his lips creasing outward into a partial grin. “Anatoly…it’s alright if I call you Anatoly, isn’t it, or should it be Mr. Leitner?”
He could see that look in Anatoly’s eyes in the mirror, the familiar stare from years ago that he’d come to respect, the cauldron of fury beneath it being calmly contained. “Anatoly will do for you, my young friend, as long as I don’t have to call you Agent Kearns.”
Chapter 23
Perry had retreated to the side of a massive logjam that had accumulated from many flash floods, the bare limbs twisted like oversized pretzels against the embankment. He gazed down at Drake’s shattered skull a few feet away, the man’s limp figure splayed out on the sand. The yellowjackets that had been gathered at the mud puddle a few feet away swarmed over the bone splinters and gray matter.
Perry retrieved his cellphone and called Nelson Ritter.
“Mr. Kovac, I hope this call brings good news.”
“Afraid not—Sanchez got away. She had help from a federal agent.”
“You said this would be a quick snatch-and-grab operation.”
“Don’t worry, they can’t get too far but we should delay the operation.”
“Not an option. There are too many dominos that have already begun to fall. The shipment of assault weapons and explosives is arriving shortly.”
The situation is too volatile until we have Sanchez in our hands.”
“You’re not hearing me—the funds have already been moved to the key players. These are not the type of people you request a refund from.” There was a long pause, Nelson’s increased exhalations the only sign that he was still on the phone until he barked into Perry’s ear, “Get to Anaheim, handle the exchange or you’re dead. Is that clear enough for you?”
Perry grimaced and then sighed. “Crystal.”
“In the meantime, what needs to be done to hunt down Sanchez and this agent she’s with?”
“If she has the files you indicated, what will she need to decode them?”
Ritter was silent for a moment. “The only place to decrypt those is here at Aeneid. Our software is proprietary and our files accessible only through our company mainframe.”
“Then just shut those portals down until after the attack is launched. She’ll be crippled. They’ll just be two fugitives on the run that will get picked up a few weeks from now at some restaurant in Denver.”
“Impossible to do something on that scale without affecting all of our other internal networks which will only cause delays in the upcoming operation. However, we can make it easy for them to enter the facility, luring them inside, and then disposing of them after.”
Perry thought about Mitch as he felt the searing pain in his cheek from the earlier splinters of rock shards that lacerated his face. “That should work. Just leave the FBI agent to me. And one more thing—your head brute is without a head. He was taken out by the fugitives along with seven other guys.”
There was a muffled sigh from Nelson. “He’s off the books and won’t show up in any databases. Pity, he was years in the making.”
Perry cleared his throat as he kicked dirt onto Drake’s chest. “I’ll be there as soon as I make sure things are covered with my bureau chief.”
“My jet will be waiting for you in Phoenix. And Perry—this had better go without any further glitches. I want the files, the woman, and these loose ends tied up by nightfall.”
Perry grunted into the phone then hung up and shouted back to the remaining six men who were concealed amongst the bushes, their weapons still fixed on the canyon. “Strip ape-man of all his gear.”
He started retreating back down their approach route to the disabled vehicles. “You men disperse and make your way back to Phoenix. I need to retrace my steps and emerge a few miles to the southwest. After that, I’ll be in touch about the next leg of this mission.”
Chapter 24
His name was Fareed Mahmoud. His life growing up in the foothills of Iran had given him fortitude. His commitment to the Koran had provided a roadmap for devotion which his twisted mind had bent to match his own desires, and four years at the University of California in Los Angeles had stoked the raging fires of discontent against the infidel. His chatroom conversations in Persian with other discontented students and a later visit to a training camp in Yemen were what made Nelson Ritter smile.
Religion was of little use in Ritter’s own thinking. He had long ago shucked off his formal Catholic upbringing. He surmised that one’s destiny was shaped by an iron-clad will, timing, cunning, and destroying your competitors. But he did recognize religious zealotry as a powerful business tool for galvanizing his causes.
Fareed and his associates at UCLA were perfect for Ritter’s small-scale attack on U.S. soil. He knew it didn’t have to be spectacular, nor did there have to be a large body-count—there only had to be enough attention drawn to Fareed’s Iranian heritage to rally support with outraged corporate financiers who would pull out of their oil interests in the Caspian Sea. Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan formed a pact on the division of the Caspian Sea resources over a decade ago. Iran had been disputing that claim line, which would grant them the lion’s share of 48 billion barrels of oil along trillions of cubic meters of natural gas.
Iran’s involvement in a homegrown terrorist cell in the U.S. would thrust them onto the world stage, allowing Ritter’s expansion efforts in neighboring Turkmenistan to proceed. With Iran out of the way, the oil would flow unobstructed through the new pipeline to Europe, placing Ritter and his colleagues into the realm of nearly unlimited power in the region and with bank accounts to match.
Fareed was smart, idealistic, and charismatic. His loose affiliations with extremist groups would serve as enough of a catalyst for the American media to run with their own versions of fabricated reality. Ritter knew that fact-checking had exited American journalism with the advent of social media, which only needed embryonic half-stories to give birth to what the masses felt like absorbing during that week’s news cycle.
The other disillusioned youths in Fareed’s jihadist group were spread around the Los Angeles region, most still working menial jobs to pay for their schooling. Every Wednesday evening they would meet at an abandoned car stereo warehouse on Lamson Avenue, south of downtown Anaheim. The building was owned by Fareed’s uncle, who had shuttered the business with the recent economic downturn.
Each week, the group focused on a skill set revolving around dry-fire practice drills with their firearms, room clearing techniques, and studying small unit tactics that Fareed had learned during his brief time in Yemen.
Once a month, they also went out to the desert around Joshua Tree and did endurance runs with their heavily laden backpacks to simulate an evasion scenario. Though he prayed he would die in a hail of bullets after expending his weapons in a fiery battle, Fareed had also become intrigued with the survival mindset, which added another tool to his pseudo-tactical mindset.
Unknown to the others in his group, Fareed had stowed a few 10mm rocket boxes in the desert in case he was ever on the run. He obtained these from a military surplus store in Riverside. These had been buried in a GPS-marked site near Palm Springs at the base of a cliff. The cache contained enough survival gear, rations, pistol magazines, ammunition, and first-aid items for Fareed to be on the lam for a few days. His escape route out of Los Angeles ran along the I-10 corridor skirting around Palm Springs and he had sat up many long nights plotting out what an exciting escape from justice would look like from the comfort of his laptop. After that he wasn’t sure what he would do but he had read on various survival forums that an evader should always have a three-day supply of goods to “Get Out of Dodge,” whatever the hell that meant.
Ritter had followed Fareed’s whereabouts for the past nine months, eventually sending one of his senior mercenaries of Egyptian descent, Gamal, who feigned alliance with an Al Qaeda affiliate to build a relationship of trust in their common interests. Through many clandestine meetings, the plans for six lone-wolf attacks were made, the resolve built, the men assembled, and the targets identified. Now all that was needed was the might. Ritter was thrilled, his spine electric, when the call finally came in from Gamal that the pieces had aligned.
He made the necessary calls to Assistant Secretary of Defense Thomas Monroe and Agent Perry Kovac to ensure the incoming shipment of weapons and demolition gear would arrive without incident, the cargo plane’s manifest and customs requirements being reassigned to another vessel. The AK-47s would then be meticulously stamped on the metal receiver above the handguard with the symbol of the Iranian flag. Ritter saw to it that his personal team of mercenaries handled the crates, planting enough evidence to reveal the source was an extremist group led by Fareed with the sanction of Iranian rebels.