The Pilgrim Strain

by Edgar, C. P.

  “From Brewster’s line?”

  “No, it was different. It’s still in my recent calls log,” Rainer said powering the phone on. He wanted to be sure it was still there.

  Ed grabbed the phone and ripped the back cover off exposing the battery which he pulled out of the device. “They may be able to track you down on this. Tell all of your men to hand over their phones, batteries removed.”

  “Kef, make it so,” Rainer said. “Also, get the rest of the team in here and lock this place down so we can all get some rest.”

  “Roger that,” Kef stood and grabbed a small dump pouch he had lying in his gear bag. He tossed his own phone into it after he had removed the battery. He looked at Daggan who shook his head in the negative.

  Ed chuckled, “Daggan you don’t have a phone?”

  “Nope. All the ladies calling all the time gets on my nerves.” He gave Merissa a wink. She smiled warmly at the big man.

  Ed moved to his gear bags and unzipped a couple of the outside pockets, digging through them obviously in search of something. He found it in the third pocket searched and extracted a small Ziploc bag and a Sharpie marker from one of the others. He handed the materials over to Rainer, “Bag that phone and write the number and passcodes on the outside of the bag. I have someone in mind that may be able to help us but it will have to wait until we get back to the States.”

  He waited while Rainer bagged the phone, parts and all, and began jotting down the info using the marker. Meanwhile the rest of the team flowed into the building carrying the rest of the loose gear from the SUVs outside.

  Miller was the last to enter and announced to the group, “All in.”

  “Good,” Ed said punching some codes into his own smartphone. The door locked on command. “This place is locked and alarmed so nobody try to go for a late-night stroll, or the system will go off and a QRF team located at the nearest Agency listening station will come smashing their way in. Understood?” he asked looking around for confirmation that they were all on the same page.

  “What’s a QRF team?” Merissa asked.

  “A quick reaction force. Generally, a small team tasked with moving to a place quickly to deal with a problem, in this case securing this place if it is attacked or threatened.”

  “Oh,” she said feeling stupid for some reason. She had always felt awkward around strong men like these.

  Growing up Merissa was awkward and nerdy, her beauty hidden by her lack of self-esteem. She avoided the popular kids and the varsity types but secretly wanted the athletic boys to want her. When she was rejected, she built up a barrier mechanism, and when she found friendship with others similar to her, smart and nerdy, they would lash out at the stupid jocks with sarcasm and cynicism.

  She contemplated on this now, having always assumed that testosterone-laden spec ops soldiers were nothing more than advanced jocks. Merissa was now ashamed to admit that they were brilliant in their own way. Powerful, and confident. Men like Rainer, who she was watching now, had mastered their art of war using more than just their physical prowess, they had mastered it with their minds and bodies. They are super sexy.

  “Ok, good. Now gather around and listen up.” Ed bent over and pulled a leather-bound folder from the bag at his feet. He continued after having found the sheet of paper within that held his handwritten notes.

  ”Tomorrow, we will be moving from this location to the airport. There, we will be breaking up into three travel teams.”

  Ed turned and pointed first to Einberg and then to Miller who had taken up positions in the background of the open room. “You two will be leaving from Basrah International in the morning on an Etihad Airways flight to Istanbul and then from Istanbul to DC on Turkish Airlines Flight 237.”

  “What about identities?” Miller asked looking concerned.

  “Some of us will be in true identity and some will be carrying cover identities if I can get that work station over there fired up and working properly. And God help it if the last fucker that used it didn’t resupply the stock identity paper,” Ed stated to the team with a smile.

  The group moved about nervously at this news. Rainer could feel his men tense up. “Ok guys, ratchet it down a level. I know this isn’t ideal, but Ed and I looked for alternatives. The emergency identities we each carry for bugging out were worked up by the very agency that has doubled us, so those are obviously trash now. Getting on the planes shouldn’t be an issue for any of us using our true identities.”

  “Yeah, but getting off the plane in the States without a shiny new set of handcuffs on is the true challenge, isn’t it?” Miller asked with a slight smirk. He knew they had no choice and was recognizing the potential fun in making it a competition.

  “We’ll all be fine. We are minimizing our footprint by traveling in smaller groups. Once in the States, we will link up at a designated rally point and get on with this mission. Plus, nobody knows the depth of what we know, I’m sure of it. If they did we’d already be captured or dead,” Ed stated.

  “What mission, saving our asses? There is no honor in that. I want to find the fuck that set this in motion,” Daggan said.

  “Let’s be perfectly clear. The mission is just that. Right the wrong. We can’t do that until we get clear of here and back to the States. Ed needs to get Merissa to where she can be most effective, and we need to make sure nobody gets in her way. After she is safe, and she can warn them of what is coming, we’ll go hunting. Roger?” Rainer said.

  “Roger,” was chorused from the group.

  “Ok, here is the rest of the plan.”

  ***

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Twenty-four hours prior to the Pilgrimage.

  Ankara, Turkey

  Joshua fiddled with the small leather case that sat within the pocket of his pullover jacket. He was so worried about misplacing it that he was constantly checking and rechecking that it was still within his possession.

  It had been shipped to him three days earlier. Actually, shipped was inaccurate. It had been hand couriered to him by an operative that he believed he had momentarily spotted. He had only known that he was supposed to pick up a dead drop.

  The news that he was to be tasked with a mission had been broadcast to him through a series of Facebook posts on public pages he was forced to monitor daily. The first Joshua noticed that a task was inbound was when he woke up early days prior and was surfing OPIC's website, one of the many he was responsible for constantly checking, and had isolated a press release titled “OPIC partner in Chile producing solar hybrid power capacity at 150 kilowatt hours of solar electricity and 210 kilowatts of thermal power.”

  Joshua had cross-referenced his code matrices card and found a hit for Chile 150/210. The card listed three additional Facebook accounts, and upon a review for each, he isolated three newly posted photographs by commentators named Arica150, Osorno210, Valdivia360.

  Each photo featured an individual standing in seemingly normal circumstances. However, Joshua knew that it wasn't the person that mattered nor the background. It was the position of the person's right hand in relation to the borders of the photograph that made the cypher work. The position of the hand was like a landmark depicted on a topographical map.

  Joshua applied a custom computerized grid over each digital photo and set the grid's parameters to 150/210. The system applied an algorithm to the grid which created a grid reference guide, composed of nonsensical numbers and code phrases.

  Joshua was able to visually observe that the right hand of the English gentleman in a well-tailored dark suit in the first photograph was in the grid labeled 39.924576. He then adjusted the grid algorithm to accept the next photograph and observed that the hand of the young beautiful model holding a bottle of perfume in the second photograph was in the grid labeled 32.83736.

  The last photo depicted a young boy riding his bicycle on a street, and his right hand clutching the grip of his bike was in a grid which rendered Panthera7recht. Knowing that these were GPS coordinate
s, Joshua simply googled 39.924576 32.83736 which rendered to a location only a few miles away.

  He wondered with anticipation if he'd be able to figure out the last clue while he was there. He had failed a few times in the past and had been reprimanded vehemently for his ineptitude.

  Joshua had walked out that night from his hostel in Ankara, Turkey with a light jacket and a small backpack containing his laptop, a bottle of water, and a small black plastic garbage bag. He walked for three miles before turning onto the pedestrian path toward the Anitkabir. It was a beautiful night, clear and starry.

  As he approached the granite steps leading up to the entrance, he noted the two uniformed Turkish soldiers standing at attention on ornamented pedestals at their posts on either side of the entrance. Next to them were glassed cases used to house them in inclement weather.

  Joshua imagined that when encased they would look like toy soldiers, their starched uniforms stiff against the breeze and their highly-polished brass military accoutrements twinkling against the black of the night. He walked up the stairs and past them onto the Road of Lions. Lions, of course, Panthera.

  The Road of Lions led to the Anitkabir Tomb, and on the road were twelve pairs of immortalized lions watching the encroaching onlookers as they made their way to the tomb.

  Actually, they were watching him now, he being the only pedestrian on the road at the moment. Joshua needed to find the seventh lion. Recht means right in Dutch, he thought he recalled.

  He walked along the road passing the first sets of lions crouched low and grimacing, their teeth showing. He studied their surroundings as he passed each looking for any obvious, to him, markings or signs. As he continued along the cobblestone road, ahead he noticed a man who had been looking at the fourth pairing on the right abruptly start walking along the road in the opposite direction that Joshua was currently traveling, heading deeper into Anitkabir toward the central ceremonial plaza. The man, who appeared to be dark-skinned and not very tall, disappeared quickly around a corner and was gone.

  Joshua made his way to what he believed to be the seventh lion on the right and stopped, near where the man had been standing. Nothing stuck out as obviously misplaced by the man or left behind. Looking over his shoulder, he noted that he was the only pedestrian around. The guards although visible were off in the distance and were too concerned with appearing disciplined and proper.

  Joshua moved around the lion taking care not to touch it for some reason and found a small package wrapped in paper on the ground between the statue and the granite wall. The space was only inches apart and the package had been slipped in. He leaned over quickly, grabbed the package and slipped it under his armpit.

  Immediately Joshua began walking back from which he came. He made no move to hide the package in his pack, it was small enough to remain concealed in his armpit. He grabbed his mobile phone and made a fictitious call, pretending to speak to a girl while he walked out past the guards.

  Back in the relative safety of his room he took time to sit and look at the package that he had placed on the small wooden table in the corner of the room. Finally, he made great effort in slowly and carefully opening it.

  The case, he found, contained a solid microneedle system. Unbeknownst to him it had been developed in the United States by a pharmaceutical company for self-administration of Botox to housewives throughout the country. The only problem that the Botox market had encountered in its massive rise to fame was a complete fear of needles and pain by women and some men. Luckily for some, the German Stasi had developed a needle system in 1982 that had carried poison to unwitting assassination targets throughout the region during the most tumultuous times of the conflict.

  The key to their system was that it was painless, allowing the assassin the opportunity to administer the drug and leave the area, often moving between West Germany and East Germany in the process. The technology had been shelved for a decade plus, feared by the Germans and Russians as an admission of their use of techniques that could prove to be worthy of war crime charges. However, the volume and profitability of Botox had created a market that needed to be filled, and certain facts were easily ignored if a profit margin was steep enough.

  Joshua didn't know any of these factors. He didn't really think beyond what he was told. He so desperately wanted to rise within the organization. I cannot fail again and still be a viable operative.

  He had memorized the handwritten instructions found along with the microneedles and had destroyed them by fire, the acrid smell of burned paper still hanging in the air as he packed his belongings and prepared to clean his room of any evidence he had been there.

  ***

  Joshua hadn’t slept in forever it seemed, and sitting now, the sleep he had been ignoring was beginning to pull at him. The trip from Ankara to Istanbul had been a lot longer than he had anticipated because of all of the switchbacks he had conducted to cover his trail and make sure he wasn’t being followed. He was exhausted but determined to be viewed as a success by his handlers.

  He convinced himself he was resting only briefly, watching the comings and goings of hundreds if not possibly thousands of travelers as they moved between points on the globe. Joshua found himself checking to make sure the case was still in his pocket again. Assured, he looked up to see a small family passing him as he sat on a bench within the airport terminal courtyard.

  A girl of probably six was holding the hand of her older brother as they tried to keep up with their parents. The girl gave Joshua a broad smile. She was missing one of her front teeth he noticed.

  He stood abruptly and looked left then right along the departure terminal of the Istanbul Atatürk Airport. He had previously located the men's restroom before sitting down, now walked to it, shouldering his small travel backpack. He was beginning to sweat, and he needed to pee again. Come on man, this is your first real-world operation. They may be watching. This may be a test.

  He found an empty stall and moved inside and shut the door behind him. Once inside he drew the small black case from his inside jacket pocket and unzipped it. He located the microneedle and then the aluminum coated vial marked 1. He spun the vial into the threaded end of the microneedle system and heard and felt a small pop as it seated. Shit, I need to pee first.

  After having relieved himself, he grabbed up the microneedle once more and exited the stall to the restroom nearly colliding with an Arab man upon his exit. He righted himself having awkwardly dodged the man and exited the restroom.

  “Time to get it on,” he whispered to himself, imagining this is what his character would say in the movie about his life.

  He walked along the departure terminal and found the large digital display which listed all current departures hanging from the ceiling so that travelers could quickly glance up during their haste to find their way. He looked down the alphabetized list and memorized the gates for the departures he knew were important to the mission. Amsterdam Gate 223, Baghdad Gate 225, Bucharest Gate 215, Frankfurt Gate 224, Kiev Gate 216, Lisbon Gate 217, London Gate 222, Munich Gate 220, New York Gate 218, Riyadh Gate 214, Rome Gate 221, Tehran Gate 226, Tel Aviv Gate 219, Washington D.C. Gate 212.

  Looking around he saw that he was standing between gates 212 and 214 at the duty-free kiosk. He watched in disgust as a fat businessman probably in his late 40's threw the full admissible amount of cigarettes, wine, perfume, and chocolate on the counter waiting impatiently to purchase them for his flight back to wherever he came from. Based on his size, he was probably going back to the United States. Joshua decided then that he would be the first target.

  He approached the man like a wraith. He tried his best to keep one eye on the man and the other on the goods on the various surrounding shelves in an attempt to be perceived as a shopper. The man was placing his wallet into the inside breast pocket of his dark grey, wool overcoat after having paid for his booty. Joshua noted with some level of curiosity the tip of a red handkerchief strategically placed so as to be seen protruding from the
outside breast pocket of the jacket. Fashionable.

  The aluminum tube in Joshua's hand was slippery from the perspiration evaporating from his palms. He moved quickly at the last moment and bumped heavily into the fat man in a way that appeared accidental but absolutely was on purpose. He pushed the microneedle hard into his backside and felt the small clack in his hand as it released its tiny, liquid charge into the soft flesh of the man as Joshua collided with him.

  Joshua immediately began apologizing for his error in Dutch with his empty hand up and palm toward the man in a show of apology and then clumsily, stormed out of the duty-free in a huff. The man just stared at him briefly and then checked to make sure his wallet was still in the pocket on the inside of his jacket. Satisfied he had not been pickpocketed, he continued about his business.

  Joshua had a broad grin on his face as he continued down the broad terminal concourse. One down, eighty-three more units to disperse.

  ***

  Flight # 237 Istanbul to Washington, D.C.

  Einberg looked out the window of the Airbus A330 at the water leagues and leagues below. Ever since he was a child he had always loved flying, and recalled fighting with his brothers for rights to the window seat. His father often having to settle the wrestling and jockeying for the coveted seat by awarding it to all three boys on a rotating schedule. Maybe that was why Einberg, even now, spent all his moments gazing out on the endless sea below, happy to have his time at the window.

  Technically it had been Miller's seat as reflected on his ticket stub, but Einberg had jumped into it without giving Miller the option. Miller, who just wanted to get the flight over with, put up no real resistance. He had simply sat down, slapped on a pair of sunglasses, pulled his hoodie over his head, and commenced to sleeping. Miller was painfully aware of how long the flight would be and wanted to sleep through most of it.