by Isaac Hooke
"Maybe you should have," Bretta said. "Pain can be a surprisingly good loosener of tongues."
"Or merely bowels," Ethan said.
When he met her eye, she casually shrugged. "Most men break after they've shit themselves."
Dangerous woman, indeed.
The two of them didn't find anything else of interest in the shack and the pair shortly abandoned the place. The operative on guard duty nodded when they passed him on the trail outside.
At the parking lot, Jerry and another operative were waiting for them in front of the Audi. Another two stood watch in front of the mother's Mercedes-Benz. In the back seat sat Andrei's mother and the blonde girl—they would be taken in for further questioning. The Mercedes would probably be used to transport them, as it couldn't be left there. The Yellowjacket and his two men were being held inside the white van, of course.
"Well I guess we're going to have some down time over the next few days," Ethan said. "Until we find the next lead." He shook Jerry's hand. "Good working with you."
"You too," Jerry said. "We'll be in touch."
Ethan shook the other operative's hand, then he opened the Audi's passenger door.
"Eight-Blue Leader, you might want to see this," a member of the support team said over the secure comm.
Jerry touched his earbud and swung his body toward the Ford van. "What do you have?"
"I'm looking at the Yellowjacket's laptop," the operative said over the line. "Looks like someone installed a keylogger. Maybe the Romanian cybercrime division did it before our Yellowjacket went AWOL on them. Or maybe he did it himself, paranoid that someone might access his laptop when he was away from it."
"If the latter is true, then the bastard lied to me," Ethan responded. "I specifically asked him about the message history and he said there wasn't any."
"Either way," the operative continued. "Looking through the logs, I discovered he managed to send off a message before you secured him. To the user DiamondMan, I think."
"What does it say?" Ethan asked.
"It reads: Compromised. Can you help? Then he gives the GPS location of the shack."
Ethan exchanged an urgent look with Bretta. "The idiot—"
A rocket propelled grenade tore past from the woods and struck the van. The resultant fireball launched the vehicle three feet in the air.
11
The shockwave threw Ethan to the ground. Debris flew over his head. The ear-splitting explosion caused his tinnitus to flare, and that constant, high-pitched tone drowned out everything else.
Ethan found himself very far away, his convoy caught in the open desert, surrounded by enemy forces. His men were under fire. They crouched against the steel skirts of their Bradleys for cover. Roland fought beside him.
The RQ-16 T-Hawk smashed into the ground nearby, shot out of the sky. The convoy had been using the trashcan-sized UAV to reconnoiter the land ahead for potential ambushes and roadside bombs, but had withdrawn it to refuel. That was when the insurgents had attacked.
An RPG struck their position. Ethan was thrown to the sand.
He got up. Roland lay face first on the ground beside him. His friend wasn't moving.
Ethan turned him over. Roland's chest and face were covered in red mud—blood mixed with moon dust.
"Man down!" Ethan shouted. "Man down!"
The AK bullets came in relentlessly. More men fell beside him. Brothers.
"Men down!" Ethan groped for the radio, and made a call to HQ. He forced himself to speak clearly and calmly. He might not have a chance to repeat the call. "We've been ambushed. My men are getting eaten alive out here. We need help."
"Ethan!" Bretta tugged at his arm, ripping him from the waking nightmare.
Ethan blinked. He was drenched in sweat and lying facedown on the asphalt near the Audi. He rolled over, trying to get his bearings. The van burned across the lot. Jerry and two other operatives were crouched beside him, firing past the Audi into the tree line.
Jerry paused to reload his pistol.
Ethan scrambled to his feet, drawing his concealed Px4. "Jerry, some covering fire."
Jerry nodded.
"Bretta, with me!" Ethan and Bretta raced toward the tree line while Jerry and the others covered them. When the pair reached the trees the support operatives ceased firing.
Ethan wended through the lightly forested area, pausing behind a trunk every few paces. He guessed the launch point of the RPG based on its flight path, and was slowly making his way toward that spot.
Movement drew his eye up ahead. He took cover as bullets raked the juniper trunk beside him. Bretta dove behind a small bush.
When the gunfire ceased, Ethan leaned past, pistol raised. He spotted a blur as someone ran away through the trees. He released three quick shots, but knew his chances of hitting anything with a pistol at that range were next to nil.
He hurried onward. When he reached the tree where the suspect had been hiding, he spotted a discarded RPG launcher.
The squeal of tires on asphalt came from up ahead. Ethan increased his pace. Bretta dashed past him and burst through the tree line first.
Getting old, Ethan.
Bretta began to fire.
Ethan emerged from the forest onto a road. A blue Peugeot fled the scene, racing east toward the city.
With his Px4, Ethan flagged down an approaching Alfa Romeo and hauled the driver onto the asphalt. Unfortunately, the man had forgotten to put the car into park, so Ethan had to rush inside and slam on the brakes to let Bretta in.
Once she was secure, he floored the accelerator. Ordinarily, as the lead on a mission, he would have let Bretta drive. But there wasn't time to argue protocol when the suspect was getting away. He didn't entirely trust her combat driving skills, anyway. Bootleg turns were fine on an empty highway or in training, but in a real-life chase situation the more experienced driver was always preferred.
"Eight-Blue," Ethan said into his mic. "A blue Peugeot is fleeing the scene. We have wheels and are in pursuit. Take the Audi. We'll rendezvous with you at the black site later."
"Roger that," Jerry returned, his voice warping because of the range.
"Eight-Blue, I don't suppose we can get eyes on the suspect vehicle?"
"Negative," Jerry said. Ethan barely understood him through the heavy jitter. "We lost our nano drones with the van. We're blind."
"Damn."
The roadway was flanked by thick forest on either side. As the Alfa Romeo neared the city, the trees fell away, replaced by gated bungalows. Other streets merged with the route, bringing in more traffic.
Ethan weaved past the other cars, closing with the Peugeot. Ethan planned to remain about five car lengths behind and attempt a stealth pursuit, but when he saw the target swerving in and out of oncoming traffic he switched into a higher gear and accelerated.
The Peugeot swerved down a side street.
Ethan geared right down, letting the downshift brake the vehicle, and he spun the wheel early. As the rear fishtailed, he accelerated, completing the high speed turn.
The street was tiny there, thanks to the double-parked cars on either side. The driver of a parked compact decided to open his door at the wrong moment, and Ethan ripped it off.
As the Alfa Romeo neared the Peugeot, Bretta carefully leaned out the window and aimed her Px4. Ethan pulled the vehicle slightly to the left, moving away from the parked cars to give her room.
"Careful," Ethan said. "Miss, and a stray bullet enters any one of these homes."
She didn't bother to reply. After taking a moment to aim, she fired twice.
Two indentations appeared in the Peugeot's rear bumper.
"Yep, you missed," Ethan said.
The fleeing driver fired a pistol in return. Bretta ducked back inside and Ethan partially ducked: three bullet holes spiderwebbed the Alfa Romeo's laminated windshield.
Ethan sat upright once more; he was forced to lean his body to the side to peer past the cracks in the glass.
&nbs
p; The vehicles approached a Y intersection; the Peugeot took the right branch.
Ethan pursued. The Peugeot sped past an intersection marked with a stop sign. Ethan followed right behind, accelerating. A bus nearly struck the Alfa Romeo. The Doppler shifting sound of its horn was a cruel reminder of how close he had come to ending both their lives.
Careful, Ethan. You're driving like you're alone, but it's not just your life at stake here.
Bretta leaned out the window and took another shot. That time she hit the rear tire. The fleeing car fishtailed badly. The driver tried to turn down an intersection, but the unbalanced vehicle swerved sideways into the oncoming lane. A BMW slammed into the passenger side of the Peugeot, wrapping the vehicle around its front end.
Ethan performed a U-turn and halted beside the accident.
With her free hand, Bretta retrieved a tiny aerosol can from one of the pockets of her jumpsuit. Ethan thought it was Mace.
He jumped out of the Alfa Romeo, drew his pistol, and approached the Peugeot with Bretta.
Around them other vehicles had stopped. Bystanders were approaching. When they saw Ethan and Bretta holding Px4s, the onlookers quickly backed off. Some of the vehicles fled, while in others the drivers ducked out of sight behind their window frames.
Bretta paused beside the rear of the ruined Peugeot and spray-painted the license plate black with her aerosol can.
"You keep spray paint in your pocket?" he said softly.
She shrugged. "Tradecraft."
Ethan continued toward the driver side, his Px4 held at the ready in front of him.
12
Ethan crept past the passenger door of the folded Peugeot, keeping his pistol trained on the windows. There was no one in the back seats. In front, it looked like only the driver side was occupied.
The motionless operator was still buckled in. His head leaned to one side. The airbag hadn't deployed. Maybe that model didn't have one.
Ethan reached through the open window and held a finger under the man's nose. Still breathing. Good. Judging from his closely cropped beard and hair, tanned skin, and Gulf features, Ethan guessed the man was from Yemen or Oman.
The door wouldn't open, so Ethan released the seatbelt and dragged the man through the window. The suspect moaned as his side scraped the door frame.
Ethan lowered the man to the asphalt and patted him down. No weapons. His rifle and pistol were likely somewhere inside the Peugeot, but Ethan had neither the time nor the reason to retrieve them.
Ethan dragged the guy toward the Alfa Romeo while Bretta kept the onlookers at bay. Ethan shifted his hold and the man yelped suddenly. Ethan realized a thick, triangular shard of glass protruded from the man's right shoulder. Ethan adjusted his hold, taking care not to touch the shard. That injury might prove of use later.
He heard a siren in the distance. Two blocks away, red and blue lights flashed as a police cruiser hurried to the scene.
"Ethan, time to go." Bretta opened the driver side of the Alfa Romeo and sat down. She left the door open, keeping her Px4 pointed outside to deter any onlookers.
Ethan wanted to drive again, and was about to tell her to move, but he decided it was probably better if he sat with the prisoner in the rear instead.
Ethan hauled the Arab into the back seat and piled in after him. The moment he shut the door, Bretta spun the vehicle into a U-turn and raced from the scene.
He glanced through the rear window. Behind him, the police cruiser arrived at the accident site. Bystanders hurried to the vehicle and pointed frantically at the fleeing Alfa Romeo. Nice of them.
The cruiser promptly pursued.
"Bretta..." Ethan said.
"I see it," Bretta said from up front. "Nothing I can't handle." She met his eyes in the rearview mirror. "Our friend there doesn't look so good."
"No," Ethan said.
Internal hemorrhaging was a nasty thing. Probably a good idea to interrogate the man sooner rather than later.
He slapped the man gently in the face a few times until he opened his eyes.
"What is your name?" Ethan asked him.
The Arab didn't answer. Either he was in too much shock, or refused to talk. Probably the latter.
Ethan twisted the shard of glass embedded in the man's shoulder as hard as he could. The Arab moaned, then struggled weakly, clawing at Ethan's hands.
Ethan released the pressure and the man gasped for several moments.
"Your name?" Ethan tried again, switching to Arabic.
The victim's eyes widened in surprise, but still he said nothing.
Ethan twisted the shard once again. Fresh rivulets of blood surged forth, pouring onto Ethan's fingers. The man's entire face twisted in agony. His head abruptly fell to the side: blacked out.
Ethan waited a few seconds until the man came to, then he twisted the shard again. The victim's body shook from head to toe. Ethan backed off before he lost consciousness again.
"I thought you were an infidel," the man said between gasps, in Arabic. He spoke the language with a Pakistani accent.
Ethan was tempted to try Urdu, but decided Arabic suited his purposes well enough.
"The only infidel in this car is you," Ethan told him. "What is your name?"
The vehicle lurched to the left and the G-forces sent the injured prisoner plunging into Ethan. The man actually tried to bite his ear, but Ethan beat him back with a few well-placed gut punches. Then he twisted the shard for good measure.
"Yazid!" the man answered frantically. "My name is Yazid Al-Tunisi!"
"Your real name," Ethan said.
The man's eyes darted to the houses racing past outside. The buildings were awfully close, the parked cars even closer—some almost scraped the sides of the Alfa Romeo. Police sirens wailed in the background.
Ethan was ready to pounce on him in case he tried to open the passenger door, but the man abruptly lowered his gaze. He must have realized there was no escape that way.
"I am Iqbal ul-Haq." The name was Pakistani.
Broken, already. Probably not surprising, given the man had only just stepped away from a near-fatal collision. Ethan reminded himself that you couldn't judge a man's limits, nor his character, simply by looking at him.
"Who do you work for?" Ethan said.
Iqbal hesitated.
Perhaps not broken entirely... Ethan glanced at the shard.
"Wait wait," Iqbal said. "Can you give me protection?"
"Protection?"
"The man I work for will not be pleased. You must take me where no one can find me."
Ethan considered it. Sam could probably arrange something. "Sure. We'll lock you away in a prison so deep underground that not even the guards can find you. Now tell me who you work for."
"That doesn't sound very reassuring," Iqbal said.
Ethan reached for the shard. He felt no pity for the man, none whatsoever, not after Iqbal had murdered his fellow operatives in cold blood back there.
The sheer ruthlessness must have shown in Ethan's eyes, because Iqbal quickly ceded.
"I work for The Caliph," he said.
"Al Sifr?" Ethan asked.
"That is one of his names, yes."
Ethan regarded Iqbal intently. "Tell me about Al Sifr."
"I know him only by reputation."
Ethan frowned. "You know him only by reputation, yet you work for him..."
"I do not work for him directly. It is like at any big company. How many of the line employees know the CEO?"
Ethan crossed his arms. "All right. So tell me what you know about him. By reputation, as you say."
"He is a powerful man, with much influence. It is said he even has influence with the Royal family."
"Royal family. Let me guess, he's either Jordanian or Saudi Arabian."
"Saudi, yes," Iqbal clarified.
"Why does he call himself Al Sifr? The Zero?"
"Because he is the source of everything," Iqbal said. "The zero. He will change the world."
"I honestly don't know. But he has promised that the U.S. will not bother the Middle East for very much longer. He will see to it."
"Hang on!" Bretta said.
Ethan was pulled hard to the right and slammed into the prisoner. He made sure to brush the shard as he hit; Iqbal grimaced in pain.
When the turn—and the G-forces associated with it—ended, Ethan asked Iqbal: "How do we find Al Sifr?"
Iqbal shook his head. "You can't. I only met him once, two years ago, when he recruited me after speaking at the mosque, for Friday Prayer."
"Which mosque is this?" Ethan said.
"Al Rajhi Grand Mosque," Iqbal answered. That was the biggest mosque in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
"You don't know his real name?"
"No," Iqbal said.
Ethan glanced at the shard embedded in the man's shoulder, wondering if he should give it another twist, but decided Iqbal was probably telling the truth. Why would Al Sifr reveal his true identity to someone like Iqbal—a tiny cog on a much larger wheel?
The Alfa Romeo hit a substantial bump and Ethan and Iqbal were momentarily thrown into the air.
"Watch the bumps!" Ethan cursed. "We're trying to work back here!"
"Sorry," Bretta said over her shoulder.
He heard multiple sirens. Looking through the rear window, he spotted three police cruisers in pursuit. Another joined them as he watched.
"You are planning on losing them, right?" Ethan asked Bretta.
"Yup." She sounded annoyed.
Ethan returned his attention to Iqbal. "What's your role in the organization?"
"I'm the money collector for the Romanian southeast," the man said.
"But you're also an enforcer, apparently."
"I do handle any problems presented by the workers, yes."
"Like if they ask for your help," Ethan said sarcastically.
"I only killed him when it was obvious he was being detained by some sort of intelligence apparatus," Iqbal said. "His detention put the entire Romanian operation at risk."
"They've called off the pursuit," Bretta said. "Probably asking the Poliția Română to take over." That was the national police.
Ethan glanced behind. Sure enough, the cruisers were gone.