by Scott McEwen
“Please!” the girl bawled into his face. “Liberatemi!”
“Listen!” he said, grabbing her arm. “I don’t understand what the fuck you’re saying—so shut up!”
She pulled her arm free, apparently understanding the “shut up” part, and sat sobbing between them.
Dragunov glanced up at the mirror, the hint of a grin on his face. “We could kill her.”
“Sure,” Gil said, checking the .45 and tucking it into his belly. “Even you’re not that cold-blooded.”
“We’ll have to find a place to treat our wounds soon.”
Gil chuckled sardonically. “It was no big deal when it was just me, but you lost a finger, so we suddenly need a corpsman? I don’t think so, partner. No stopping before we get to Palermo. I’m gonna kill those Russian bastards.”
“Chechen,” Dragunov said. “They’re Chechen bastards.”
“I’m gonna kill those Spetsnaz pricks. How’s that?”
The Russian smiled without taking his eyes off the road, pressing the accelerator and gripping the wheel with his bloody left hand as he grabbed another a gear. “If they already found the Palinouros, the island will soon be crawling with carabinieri. We might find Kovalenko in time to kill him, but we’ll never make it back to the mainland alive.”
“I’ll get us off this rock when the time comes,” Gil assured him. “You just find Kovalenko.” He gripped the G28 resting butt-down between his knees. “I’m gonna reach out and touch that son of a bitch.”
17
WASHINGTON, DC
Ryder woke up slightly hung over in his DC hotel room and took a shower. Then he sat naked on the bed, eating cold pizza from the night before. Pope’s meeting at the White House was scheduled for three thirty that afternoon, and it was his job to make sure the meeting never took place. He chased the pizza with a cold beer from the minifridge and got dressed, and then unzipped his bag and took out the USP .45 ACP he had picked up from a CIA contact the night before.
He broke down the brand-new pistol to make sure that it was properly lubricated from the factory. Then Ryder put it back together, loading the twelve-round magazine with 230-grain ammunition. Racking a round into battery, he dumped the mag again to load a thirteenth round and then tossed the readied pistol aside on the bed. Next, he took an SWR HEMS 2 suppressor from the bag and disassembled it, lubricating the internal parts with wire pulling gel. He did this because a “wet” suppressor was slightly more silent than a “dry” one (the lubricant absorbing the heat of the expanding gas), and Ryder wanted there to be as little sound as possible during the hit on Pope.
He put the pistol into the small of his back, slipped the suppressor into his jacket pocket, and then went to the window for a peek through the curtain. What he saw caused every nerve in his body to sing with alarm. The sexy Latina from the airport the day before was walking across the mostly empty parking lot carrying a McDonald’s bag. The sky was heavily overcast and threatened rain. He watched her cross to a room on the far side of the lot, knock twice at the door, and then enter. A second later, someone peeked out briefly through the curtains.
He stepped back and took his cellular from his pocket, calling Peterson. “I’ve been made!” he said.
“I doubt that very seriously,” Peterson replied calmly. “I’m the only one in the agency who knows anything about you. What’s got you worried?”
Ryder told him about the girl and the military-looking guy who had been on the plane the day before, and that they were now staying at the same cheap hotel. “Which is hell and gone from the airport!”
“Let me see if I understand you,” Peterson said. “A pair of travelers are staying at the same hotel as you—and that’s got you worked up.”
Viewed from that angle, Ryder felt a little silly. “It’s not as simple as that. They sat right across from me in the airport.”
“And they were on the same flight, were they?”
“Yeah, like I just told you.”
“So two people who were on the same flight as you are staying in the same hotel. Look,” Peterson said, “I don’t want to get in your business, but it might be time for you to lay off the marijuana. You don’t need the paranoia working your nerves, and I don’t need you calling me with these kinds of episodes. There’s no way you’ve been made. But ya know what? Let’s suppose for a second you had been. What the hell would you expect me to do about it over the goddamn phone?”
Ryder was embarrassed, but his discomfiture quickly morphed into a simmering anger. “Seeing as how you’re in command, I thought you’d want to know.”
“You’re not in the army anymore,” Peterson said, “and you’re not working for Obsidian Optio. You’re a freelance operator, which means you think for yourself. Got it? Now shitcan the dope and call me when the job is done.”
“I haven’t smoked in three—” Ryder realized that Peterson had already hung up. He threw the phone at the pillow. “Fuckin’ asshole!”
CROSSWHITE OPENED THE McDonald’s bag and took out a sandwich. “Any movement across the lot?”
Sarahi shook her head and sat down at the table to paint her nails. “Car’s still there.”
“Yeah, I saw it.” He took a bite and continued talking with his mouth full. “So far everything fits the profile. We have to keep a close eye on him now so he doesn’t give us the slip.”
She looked up at him. “Didn’t you put that tracker thingy on his car last night?”
He nodded, sitting down on the bed in his underwear. “But we gotta keep close to him.” He looked at the sandwich in disgust. “This must be two hours old. Would you hit the Coke machine so I can wash this shit down?”
She dipped the tiny brush back into the red bottle. “Gimme a sec.”
He dropped the sandwich back into the bag and got up. “Gonna get dressed in case he rolls out soon.”
She sat blowing on the nail for a moment, and then took a dollar from his wallet and went out the door.
Ryder was watching through a thin crack in the curtains when Sarahi stepped out, looking directly toward his room. “Paranoid, my ass!” he said, taking a folding knife from inside the waistband of his jeans and thumbing open the three-inch black tanto blade.
He watched as she made her way toward the Coke machine in the corner where the hotel made an L shape at the halfway point between their rooms. He waited until she took the can from the machine and started back before slipping out and moving swiftly after her. She was still blowing on her finger when he caught up to her just outside the room.
She glanced back at him and let out a startled gasp, dropping the Coke as he swiped expertly at the side of her neck with the knife. The tip of the scalpel-sharp blade caught her carotid artery, and he swept past her up the walk as though nothing had happened.
At first Sarahi didn’t realize she was even cut; she simply stood there with her hand over her beating heart watching Ryder walk away, but then she realized she was gushing blood from the left side of her neck, and she started screaming bloody murder.
Crosswhite jerked open the door to see her standing there spurting blood all over herself. “Holy Jesus!” He pulled her into the room and sat her down in a chair, snatching a towel from the floor and pressing it to the side of her neck. “Hold that tight, baby!”
He grabbed the phone and punched 0 with a bloody finger to get the front desk. “Call 911! Room 14—arterial bleed!”
He dropped the phone and clamped his hand back over the towel, pressing as tightly as he could. “Hang on, baby! They’re comin’! They’re comin’!”
“Please don’t let me die,” she begged, her strength beginning to fade. “Please, don’t let me die, Danny!”
“Shhh,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “Relax, baby, relax. We gotta slow your heart down. You gotta keep calm.”
When the paramedics appeared in the doorw
ay fifteen minutes later with their latex gloves and boxes of equipment, he was still standing there beside the chair clutching her lifeless, blood-soaked body against him, a thousand-yard stare in his eyes.
“Jesus,” one of the medics murmured.
Crosswhite blinked once, his gaze sliding into focus as he looked at them. “There’s nothin’ you guys can do here. Never was.”
18
CIA HEADQUARTERS,
Langley, Virginia
Pope was getting into the back of a black government sedan at CIA headquarters when he received a text message from Daniel Crosswhite: “Detained by police. Have temporarily lost contact with target.” He sighed and slipped the phone into his coat pocket. It had begun to rain, and the air was turning cold.
“Keep your eyes open, Lieutenant,” he said casually. “There exists the off chance of an attempt on my life. I wouldn’t want you hit in the cross fire.”
The marine driver looked at him in the mirror. “We’ll deal with it, sir.”
Pope was a tall man in his midsixties with soft blue eyes and a head of thick white hair. “Sorry to put you in harm’s way.”
“That’s where marines belong, sir.”
Pope settled into the seat as they pulled out of the parking deck. They drove across the CIA campus, turning onto George Washington Memorial Parkway and heading south along the Potomac River toward the District of Columbia. The GWM was a scenic highway of four lanes with a wide, grassy median separating northbound and southbound traffic. The trees of Fort Marcy National Park were only beginning to bud, and Pope caught glimpses of the river as he rode along, trying to discern in his own mind whether Gil was still alive. There had been no further contact with him since they were cut off the day before, and the murder of the Messina cops was all over the Italian news.
He wondered how much to tell the president. The commander in chief was entitled to a certain degree of plausible deniability, but it was possible that Gil had been killed and that his body might soon be identified. There would be no evidence that Gil was working for the US government, but, regardless, his identification would cause some friction at the executive level.
The satellite phone rang inside his coat, and he answered it quickly, hoping it would be Gil.
“Pope here.”
“Hello, Robert.” It was Vladimir Federov of the GRU. “Have you heard from your man on Sicily?”
“No,” Pope replied. “Have you heard from yours?”
“I’m sorry to say we have not,” Federov said. “But there is good news. There have been no arrests, and their bodies have not been found.”
“Any word on who killed the Maltese sailors?”
“Our people in Rome have concluded that it was Kovalenko,” Federov said. “Also, they have verified that someone in the CIA’s Rome office has been helping him with his logistics—someone named Walton.”
“Good old Ben Walton,” Pope said, a piece of the puzzle falling into place. “That fits.” He had recently reviewed a dossier on the now deceased Captain Miller of the Palinouros in which Walton’s name was mentioned numerous times. Both men were former US Navy. “Walton’s the agent who tipped us on Yeshevsky, the imposter Dokka Umarov, transshipping from the Greek tanker to the Palinouros. Which leads me to conclude that our man in Athens—an agent named Max Steiner—must also be working with Kovalenko. It was Steiner who tipped us that Yeshevsky was boarding the tanker.”
“How do you plan to deal with them?” Federov asked.
“I’m going to have to give that some thought,” Pope said, brushing a speck of lint from the knee of his corduroy slacks. “I’m on my way to meet with the president now.”
“Here is something else you may wish to consider,” Federov added. “We now have cause to believe the real Dokka Umarov sent Yeshevsky to Paris to meet with Al Qaeda, to strike a deal with them for an insurgency—probably posing as the actual Umarov. Such a display of apparent bravado would be convincing to Al Qaeda—considering the distance between Paris and the safety of the Caucasus.”
“Do you think Umarov still intends to hit the pipeline?”
“Personally, I have no doubt.”
Pope needed to know exactly what kinds of resources the GRU could put forth in southern Europe. “Do your people have anyone else available to help Shannon and Dragunov while they’re stuck in the Med?”
There was a slight pause before Federov replied. “Not immediately; not with the necessary skills and intelligence clearances. Dragunov and his men were brought in special.”
“Which leaves the ball in my court,” Pope said. “Okay then. But if I can get them off of Sicily and back to mainland Europe, you can cover their transportation to Georgia?”
“That I can do,” Federov promised. “But we must first verify they are still alive.”
“Well, you said no bodies and no arrests. That’s good enough for me. For now, though, you’re probably right. We have to wait for one of them to make contact.”
Pope was off the line a few moments later, tucking the phone into his coat. “I trust there’s no need to tell you that conversation was top secret, Lieutenant?”
The marine never took his eyes from the road. “What conversation, sir?”
Pope nodded. “Good man.”
When they arrived at the White House, Pope was admitted into the Oval Office for a meeting with not just the president but also the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General William J. Couture, and the new White House chief of staff, Captain Glen Brooks—former commander of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), aka SEAL Team VI.
These were the only men in Washington who knew about the Antiterrorism Response Unit. Not even the vice president was privy to the ATRU.
Captain Brooks was a broad-shouldered, soft-spoken man with discerning brown eyes, and he carried himself with a calm, military bearing. He’d been chosen to replace Tim Hagen—over dozens of more likely candidates—at Couture’s suggestion. Brooks was in no way a qualified political adviser, but his organizational skills and immediate knowledge of foreign intelligence matters was unsurpassed, and his constant presence provided the commander in chief a full-time military adviser who possessed actual hands-on experience—the kind of experience that Hagen had sorely lacked.
Within five days of Brooks’s appointment, the White House had begun to function with the same military efficiency as a US aircraft carrier conducting flight operations. With nuclear terror now a bona fide reality, many on Capitol Hill were wondering if the likes of hard-core warrior types like Brooks and Couture might be the future of White House staffers, and well-known journalists were writing ever-critical op-ed pieces speculating on what an increasingly militarized federal government might mean for the future of the United States.
“Bob,” the president said, standing to reach across the desk. “Glad you could make it.”
“Thank you, sir.” Pope turned and shook hands with Couture. “Bill,” he said quietly, “good to see you.”
General Couture was the only man in the room taller than Pope. He had merciless gray eyes and a wicked scar on the left side of his face, courtesy of an Iraqi RPG-7 grenade launcher. “Bob, you remember Glen.”
“Yes, of course,” Pope said, matching the firmness of Brooks’s grip.
Everyone sat, and the president rocked back in his chair. “Okay, Bob, bring us up to speed on Dokka Umarov and this BTC pipeline business. Is Umarov finally dead?”
Pope pushed his glasses up onto his nose. “No. He’s not. But our immediate problems are much bigger than Dokka Umarov.” He broke Gil’s situation down over the next fifteen minutes, and when he was finished talking, everyone sat waiting to see how the president would react.
If the president was rattled, it didn’t show. In fact, he appeared vaguely intrigued. “General?” he said quietly.
Couture looked
at Pope. “How badly is Shannon wounded?”
“I have no idea,” Pope replied. “As I say, he might even be dead, but there’s no reason to assume that yet. My gut tells me he’s still alive and combat effective.”
Couture shifted his gaze to Brooks. “Glen, you’re the navy man. Who do we have in the Med to pluck those two maniacs off that island without the Italians getting wise? We obviously can’t involve any of our people at Sigonella—at least not directly.” He was referring to US Naval Air Station Sigonella, located on the eastern side of Sicily.
Brooks gave a calm, sly smile, reminding everyone present that silent waters ran deep. “There’s a detachment from Group Two aboard the Whitney.” He was referring to Naval Special Warfare Group Two, which commanded SEAL Teams II, IV, VIII and X. The USS Mount Whitney (JCC 20) was the command ship of the US Sixth Fleet, presently on station in the eastern Mediterranean. Brooks turned to the president. “A squad from SEAL Team Eight could be brought to bear rather quickly, sir.”
“What do you propose?” the president asked.
“Well, sir, assuming Shannon and Dragunov are still alive . . . and assuming we can reestablish contact . . . our best chance would be a submersible SDV: a SEAL delivery vehicle. It could be used to sneak both Shannon and Dragunov aboard the USS Ohio. The Ohio’s a ballistic missile sub fitted with a pair of dry dock shelters on her hull.” He grinned. “And this is exactly the kind of mission she was fitted out for. I recommend we get a team of SEALs aboard and get her into position ASAP.”
The president sat behind his desk feeling for a moment like Captain James T. Kirk at the con of the Starship Enterprise. It was good to be in command, but it was even better knowing that you were surrounded, at last, by men who knew how to do their jobs. And he was glad to finally have no one in between himself and Pope.
“I’m glad I never fired him,” he thought. “I can’t afford to be without him now.”
“I’ll leave the details to you, General.” He knew that Brooks would cut the actual orders to the navy, which was not strictly within the authority of the White House chief of staff, but the White House now ran on a perpetual war footing, for all intents and purposes, and everyone in the Joint Chiefs understood it.