Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  It’s just a dream. Of course. He flicked on the switch, letting out a sigh as the room filled with light. He was alone—Nicole had gone to Camp David, beginning her Christmas vacation. Against the “recommendations” of the Secret Service, but that was Nicole. The traditional, retiring role of First Lady had never been for her.

  It was nerves, yes, that was it. He’d been working too hard. Needed a rest. Needed a woman. That was all it was. There was one of Cahill’s aides…what was her name?

  Just a dream. He’d never dreamed of his own death. Hancock looked down at his fingers, realizing that they were still trembling. So real…

  6:19 A.M. Central Time

  Dearborn, Michigan

  It hadn’t been the first night in her life that she had stayed up till three in the morning trying to connect nonexistent dots, but it had been a while. And she’d been younger.

  The ring of her cellphone on the nightstand of the Holiday Inn jarred her from a sound sleep, her hand flailing out from beneath the covers.

  “Altmann here.”

  “Special Agent Altmann?” The voice was young, she realized, trying to clear the fog from her brain. Young and slightly accented.

  Middle Eastern.

  That brought her fully awake. “Who is this?”

  “Please, listen to me,” the voice continued. “I am Nasir. Nasir abu Rashid. I have been working for your FBI.”

  “I know,” Marika responded, reaching for her pants at the foot of the bed. “How did you get this number?”

  “My handler. I only have a few minutes. They may be back at any moment.”

  “They? What is going on, Nasir—who are you involved with?” So many questions flooding her mind. So little time. They’d suspected that his disappearance was linked to the Michigan State Police’s discovery of that fully-automatic Kalashnikov, but there had been no direct ties. Silence. “Is an attack imminent?”

  A moment passed, then he came back on, his voice even lower than before. “I don’t know—we’re leaving the city tonight.”

  “We? I need names, Nasir.” There was no time to establish a relationship with this informant—no time for anything.

  “I don’t have them,” the informant stammered. “You have to believe me, I knew of none of this before this morning. My brother had said nothing to me, absolutely nothing…the leader—they call him the ‘Shaikh.’ A tall man, with eyes the color of the sea.”

  “Your brother?”

  “My brother—no, one of the brothers, I mean.” She could hear the fear in his tones. The uncertainty. The deception. He had lied to her, but what about? Did he have family involved…

  He went on before she could respond, announcing abruptly. “I will call you again.”

  The phone’s screen went black, eliciting a curse from Marika. She dropped the phone back into the front pocket of her jeans, pulling on a sweater over her head.

  The holstered Glock in her hand, she padded across the hotel room to knock on Russell’s door. “We’ve got a situation.”

  5:45 A.M. Pacific Time

  The empty mansion

  Beverly Hills, California

  Despite being empty for several years, the house had lost none of its grandeur. The bathroom appeared massive in the morning light, the sunrise streaming in through double french doors leading out onto a balcony.

  Good sniper post, Harry observed, mentally calculating the range. Open the doors, and a man lying prone on the tiles of the bathroom floor would have a clear shot at anyone coming out of Valentin Andropov’s front door. Over the protective wall. In the absence of a dedicated sniper rifle, the FN SCAR had the range to do it.

  By the time he’d made his way out to the kitchen, Carol was already sitting there. A solitary barstool was about the only piece of furniture left in the place, and she had commandeered it, her laptop resting securely on the granite countertop.

  “How’s the battery back-up working out?” Han had run more errands, this time for the electronics they needed to set up shop.

  She brushed her hair out of her eyes, looking up at him. “They’re not top-of-the-line, but they’ll serve our purposes. With just the laptop and the cameras, we should have well over forty-eight hours of battery power.”

  Might be enough. Might not. It was impossible to say when the target window would open.

  Harry walked over to the windows, eyeing the placement of the cameras. Mounting them under the eaves of the mansion had been tricky, but they were in position.

  The more “eyes” you could have on a surveillance mission, the better.

  “Have you done anything with the laser mic?” he asked, glancing back to where she sat.

  A nod. “It’s not going to work—he’s utilizing vibration maskers on all the windows facing the street.”

  “Privacy freak,” Harry observed. “I hate people like that.”

  Carol looked up from her laptop. “Fortunately, his son Pyotr isn’t nearly as obsessed. He’s got an electronic footprint the size of Silicon Valley.”

  “Can you exploit it?”

  A smile. “Already have,” she replied, tapping the screen with a finger.

  Harry looked where she was pointing. The e-mail link was headlined with an “alluring” photo of a European girl, with the caption, “Hot women in live action—FREE!”

  “Let me guess—he clicked?”

  “Of course. Have to hand it to him, though…it took him five minutes to decide. The average is two minutes…or so Carter used to say.”

  He shook his head. That would be Carter. “So, what happened after our boy clicked on the link?”

  “He went on and enjoyed his cam show, of course,” Carol replied. “While the Trojan opened a gateway into his system. I have his passwords and account information for every site he’s ever accessed—Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, everything.”

  Social media. It had never failed to amaze him how much people willingly posted about themselves on-line. An intelligence officer’s gold mine, all of it…just there for the taking. “Seen anything actionable?”

  “Of course. He updates his Twitter from his phone roughly every half hour—on a slow day. Talks about what he’s doing, where he’s going. And each tweet is embedded with his geo-tracking information.”

  “Like painting a bulls-eye on his own backside,” Harry said. The naivete was darkly amusing.

  When he looked back, the humor had left her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re really doing this, aren’t we?” she whispered, holding up a hand before her face. Her fingers were trembling, ever so slightly. “It’s different…being this close to it.”

  “It is.”

  “I keep trying to think of him as a target, but it’s not working.” She waved at the screen. “Not when he comes through as a kid in every post. Just a rich, stupid, oversexed kid.”

  “Then don’t look. Not any more than you have to.”

  Carol looked up into his eyes, incredulous. “Close your eyes—that’s your solution? Doesn’t it ever bother you?”

  He sighed. “I told you the story of how I got into the CIA, but I never told you what I had intended to do when I left Georgetown, did I?”

  “No.”

  “I…believed that God had called me to be a missionary. There was a team in Beirut, working to translate Gospel tracts into Arabic. They needed another translator, and I’d met with their team leader twice stateside. Had it all sorted. Or so I thought. When I finally ended up in the Middle East I was carrying a Kalashnikov instead of a Bible.” A grim smile passed across his face. “Sounds ironic, doesn’t it?”

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment, silence filling the room. “Do you ever regret your choice?”

  Harry shrugged. “Youth mistakes many things for the will of God. In the end, it’s always hard to say. I was in Iraq in 2004 when I received word—the leader of that translation team had been killed. He’d stepped onboard a bus in Beersheba moments before a suicide bomber triggered their ve
st. He was killed instantly, along with his wife and his two-month-old son. It’s true what they say. Only the good die young.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” He moved behind her, his hands resting gently on her shoulders. “You ask if it ever bothers me? The answer is no—not when it’s compared with the alternative.”

  8:59 A.M. Eastern Time

  The White House

  Washington, D.C.

  His tie was straight. Of course it was. Haskel tugged at it anyway, casting one final look into the mirror. He was nervous, and the Secret Service took a dim view of visibly nervous people meeting with the President of the United States.

  Delivering the daily briefing wasn’t his job, he thought, as he made his way down the hallway toward the Oval Office, flanked by agents. That came within the purview of the Director of National Intelligence, Lawrence Bell—but after the bombings he had been whisked away to an “undisclosed location.”

  He and Hancock had been friends once, but there was too much water underneath that particular bridge. Too many unfulfilled promises on the path to power. Now they were just allies.

  Cahill was at the end of the hallway, what passed for a smile on his face. It seemed impossible that someone could work in D.C. for such a long time and remain an unknown quantity, but that was Cahill. The President’s chief of staff was a black hole.

  “It’s good to see you again, Eric,” he murmured smoothly, escorting him into the Oval Office. The President was nowhere to be seen.

  “He’ll be here in five minutes,” Cahill announced, in answer to an unasked question. “Have a seat.”

  Haskel took a deep breath. “I need you to look at this.”

  The chief of staff looked down at the folder in Haskel’s hand as if it was poisoned. “What is it?”

  “We got a FISA warrant request from a field agent of ours in Michigan a few hours ago.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s someone we know,” Haskel retorted, gesturing for Cahill to open the folder. “Abu Kareem al-Fileestini.”

  A curse escaped Cahill’s lips. “You’re kidding me, right, Eric? Al-Fileestini was here a few months ago. He and the President sat together at the Ramadan dinner.”

  “I know, I know,” the FBI director replied, holding up a hand. “That’s why I brought it to you first.”

  Cahill’s eyes scanned down the page, his face purpling as he continued to read. “Listen, Eric, I lost a cousin when the World Trade Center collapsed. He was a firefighter—went back into that smoky hell to find somebody else to save. Never came back out.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Doesn’t matter—let me finish. I’m just sayin’, I get it. I understand the fears that still permeate this country…but for the love of all that’s holy, what type of people do you have working for you? This reads like some sort of Islamophobic hate rag—the type of stuff I’d expect to hear off talk radio, not coming from a federal agent.”

  “Then you wouldn’t advise bringing it to the President’s attention?” Haskel asked. He leaned back in his chair, glancing at his watch.

  The chief of staff snorted. “I’m wondering why you even brought it to my attention, Eric. If it weren’t for the help of moderates like al-Fileestini, we would have lost this blasted war on terror a long time ago. I don’t want to see him harassed by a glory hound.”

  “I concur,” Haskel said, reaching out to take back the FISA request. “I met Abu Kareem myself when he spoke at Quantico—a finer man I’ve never had the pleasure of knowing.”

  “Then we’re all playing off the same sheet music here?”

  “Absolutely.”

  8:45 A.M.

  Beverly Hills, California

  The hardest part of survival was finding the will to do it. It was one of two primary lessons Viktor remembered from his childhood, from his years as a sex slave. The other one was, trust no one.

  Korsakov. He pulled his knees tight up against his chin, curled up into a tight ball on top of the green trash dumpster. After all the years of abuse, he had idolized his rescuer.

  All men were the same, in the end. They all wanted more than you were prepared to give—whether your body or your loyalty. He stared down through a haze of tears at the SIM card in his hand.

  Call him.

  The impulse was there, never so strong. Resist it. The leering face of the oligarch rose up before him. Just the way he remembered him.

  The way he remembered everything. That feeling of helplessness. He fingered the SIM card aimlessly, replacing it at last in the pocket of his jacket.

  He had to. But not yet…

  10:32 A.M. Central Time

  I-80

  Northern Illinois

  He wasn’t used to driving without music. American rap, turned all the way up.

  Not this unbearable quiet, just the sound of wheels against the road, the hum of a powerful engine.

  “Where are we headed?” Nasir asked, glancing across the cab of the tractor-trailer at the negro.

  Omar looked up from his pocket copy of the Qur’an, dark fingers paging through the flowing script. “That’s not for me to say. The shaikh will answer your questions—or not, as Allah guides him.”

  Nasir shook his head, trying to keep his nerves in check, the fear that he’d felt while talking with the FBI woman threatening to overwhelm him. “And yet you expect me to drive the truck?”

  “Just keep driving till we reach Joliet. We’ll stop for lunch there.” Omar inclined his head. “You’re an illegal, right?”

  The question was so unexpected—it was impossible not to react. “What?”

  The negro laughed, flashing a smile full of white teeth. “Easy there, bro. No need to take it like that—I give props to anyone that finds a way to beat the system.” A pause. “Speaking of beatin’ the system—how does an illegal get a CDL?”

  Nasir’s knuckles whitened around the big steering wheel, a silent prayer racing through his mind. The Americans had helped him get his commercial driver’s license, in exchange for the information he had supplied to them. In exchange for his treachery. It was to have been only the beginning.

  “There are ways,” he responded, struggling to keep his voice under control. “Long story.”

  “Ways? Tell me about them, brother,” came the reply, an edge creeping into the black man’s voice. “We have all day.”

  12:38 P.M. Eastern Time

  Arlington National Cemetery

  Virginia

  He would always remember the first time he had come to Arlington, as a small child. A young Marine, a friend of the family, killed halfway around the world in the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. Taken too young.

  The snowy grass crunched beneath Thomas’s feet as he moved up the hill, past row after row of markers. He had come alone, for the sake of safety.

  There was nothing unusual about a lone mourner, particularly not at this time of year.

  A cold wind whipped through the denuded branches of the maple trees near the top of the hill, tousling his brown hair. It was a lonely place, as all cemeteries.

  He knelt by the headstone of Robert L. Krag, running his fingers reverently over the inscription. The lieutenant commander had perished with the crew of the ill-fated U.S.S. Thresher, back in ’63. Before his time.

  A tragic footnote to history. Thomas pulled off his gloves, groping in the fresh-fallen snow. A moment later, he found what he was looking for—a small, waterproof tube.

  Straightening, he broke the seal, unfolding the small scrap of paper inside, printed letters against the yellow background of a post-it note. An address, in Graves Mills, Virginia. And a note: VOICEPRINT CONFIRMED 87%. IT’S HER.

  A smile of satisfaction crossed his lips, the same feeling he’d always had when a target entered his cross-hairs.

  Rhoda Stevens was still in circulation. And he had her dead to rights.

  10:14 A.M. Pacific Time

  The empty mansion

&n
bsp; Beverly Hills, California

  Surveilling a target was nowhere near as exciting as Hollywood made it out to be. It was roughly as exhilarating as babysitting, with the caveat that you couldn’t watch TV.

  You could eat. And the average stakeout consumed more snacks than a frat house’s Super Bowl party.

  “This is just like Berlin back in ‘87,” Vasiliev groused, reaching for a handful of Doritos. “Two weeks watching a suspected Stasi defector—I gained eight pounds.”

  The faintest hint of a smile crossed Harry’s face. “And you still lost the war.”

  “You’re certain of that, tovarisch?” the former KGB field officer chuckled, arching an eyebrow. “When I was first assigned to the San Francisco consulate in February of 2009, I fly into LAX and what is the first thing I see upon disembarking? A magazine cover proclaiming, ‘We are all socialists now’.”

  The man had a point.

  Before he could come up with a suitable rejoinder, Harry’s two-way radio sitting on the card table before him crackled with static. Han. “EAGLE SIX, we have movement. Looks like they’re coming out.”

  Vasiliev swore in Russian, brushing crumbs off his shirt as he rose, his eyes focusing on the slowly opening gates of the oligarch’s estate. They had been prepared for this, but so was Andropov.

  Three vehicles. A pair of gleaming Mercedes M Class SUVs took point and rearguard positions in the convoy, providing security for a sleek black Maybach Landaulet. All three of them were riding low—the limousine most of all—undoubtedly heavily armored.

  “So, this is the way a billionaire travels,” Harry breathed, training his binoculars on the limo in an effort to penetrate the tinted windows. No dice.

  The Russian smiled. “Who said the wages of sin were all bad?”

  There was no time for deliberation—not with their target on the move. “We’ll need to tail them.”

  Vasiliev shook his head. “What are you thinking, tovarisch? Three security teams, you’re looking at 10-12 men. On the move, they’ll be at the highest alert possible.”

  “I know how executive protection works, Alexei. I also know he could be leaving the country.” Harry laid down the binoculars and picked up his leather jacket, drawing it on over his tall frame. “Carol, can you get us into the CalTrans camera network?”