Warning Light

by David Ricciardi

  “No. Two officers are down and probably the third. He called for backup and was engaging the threat but isn’t answering his radio. It sounds as if the police were overpowered.”

  “It sure as hell doesn’t sound like an extradition party,” said Kirby.

  “More like a rendition team,” said Graves. Despite the SUV’s high rate of speed, he reached behind him and opened a hidden compartment in the floor, revealing suppressed rifles, vests, and dozens of loaded magazines.

  He passed two vests, two rifles, and ten of the fifty-round magazines up to the front seat.

  He showed one of the stubby rifles to Kirby. “Do you remember how to use one of these?”

  “I trained on them back at The Farm, but I haven’t shot one in years.”

  Graves tapped the end of the barrel with his finger. “Point this part at the bad guy, then pull this thing until he’s dead.” He pointed to the trigger and handed the rifle to Kirby. “You’re good to go.”

  SIXTY-TWO

  THE VAN REEKED of blood and spent ammunition. Arzaman was back on his mobile phone and shouting at the pilot, telling him that they weren’t going to wait for immigration, customs, or even air traffic control. The pilot began to protest but Arzaman hung up and helped Olivier load Rashid’s body into the van. The airport was ten minutes away, the turbines were spooling up, and the cabin door was open. In fifteen minutes they would be in the air.

  The devastation receded into the distance as the van accelerated down the road, the wind whistling through the bullet holes in its thin metal skin. Olivier drove while Naseem wrapped a compression bandage around the original driver’s wounded shoulder. Arzaman looked dispassionately at Rashid’s dead body and considered their options.

  No one saw the silver Range Rover coming down the side road until it was too late. It clipped the tail of the van and spun it sideways. Tires shrieked as the van slid perpendicular to the road and tipped onto two wheels. The impact caused Olivier to be thrown halfway out the open window and Zac’s stretcher to break free from its mounts.

  With its high rate of speed and high center of gravity, the van rolled onto its right side, crushing Olivier’s head and torso beneath the five-ton truck. The crash sent the stretcher flying through the air and smashing into the already injured Naseem. Zac screamed a string of obscenities as the intravenous line and oxygen tube were ripped from his body. The van’s metal skin screeched as it slid across the pavement.

  Arzaman had been thrown forcefully into a metal rack along the wall of the van, cutting his head and breaking several ribs as the van came to a halt. The original driver tumbled onto Olivier’s severed legs. Awash in his comrade’s blood, the driver was dumbstruck, but not seriously hurt.

  All was still inside the van as Arzaman pulled the stretcher away. He was hunched over and wheezing. Blood dripped down his heavily scarred face.

  “How many more people have to die before this is over?” Zac asked.

  “Just one,” said Arzaman.

  He leveled his machine pistol at Zac’s forehead. The driver was shouting but Arzaman refused to break eye contact with Zac. The Iranian’s finger tightened on the trigger, but the driver reached for the gun and gently lifted it away from Zac’s face.

  “We need the other car to get to the airport. If they hear gunfire, they will leave.”

  Arzaman saw the Range Rover through the smashed windshield. It had stopped after the accident. That would be its driver’s final mistake.

  “Get a weapon,” Arzaman barked.

  Naseem lay on the floor with one eye swollen shut. Blood dripped from his mouth and ears. Arzaman handed him one of the MP7s and gestured toward Zac.

  In English he said, “Kill him if he so much as blinks his eyes.”

  Arzaman and the driver opened the back doors of the van and climbed out. Zac heard a muffled burst of automatic weapon fire, then a louder one. He looked over at Naseem, propped up on one elbow, his gaze unfocused. The machine pistol rested perilously in his hand, his finger on the trigger. Zac unbuckled himself from the stretcher and gingerly removed the gun from Naseem’s grip. The dying man’s face registered nothing.

  Arzaman ran past the rear of the van and fired a few rounds at an unseen target. The muffled gunfire sounded again and bullets ripped through the back of the van. Arzaman grunted loudly as he took a round in his thigh. He shouted to Naseem, but the medic had lapsed into shock. Arzaman laid down a few more rounds of suppressing fire and stuck his head inside the van.

  Zac jerked the trigger of the MP7, spraying bullets through the walls of the van until he was out of ammunition.

  Arzaman reached around the open rear doors and fired blind. A round grazed Zac’s arm and he dropped the empty weapon. He stepped across the bloody interior of the van and crouched behind the seats, next to Olivier’s severed body. The French policeman’s pistol was still in its holster, just inside the driver’s side window.

  Arzaman seated his last magazine in the MP7.

  Zac drew the 9mm SIG from its holster and wiped off the blood with his hospital gown. He peered around the seats.

  Arzaman swung around the back of the van and fired. Zac cried out in pain as two rounds tore through the seat and into his shoulder. Arzaman’s gun was empty in a little over a second. He looked down and saw Zac’s empty MP7 on the bottom of the van.

  The two men made eye contact. Arzaman knew that at least some of his rounds had found their mark. He picked up a stainless steel bar from the broken stretcher and called out as he limped toward Zac.

  “Come, Mr. Miller. Do not be afraid. Every man must go down to his death.”

  Zac stepped out from behind the seats.

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  He raised the pistol and fired.

  SIXTY-THREE

  ARZAMAN LAY DEAD in the back of the van as Zac lowered the empty pistol. Outside, a man was shouting.

  “This is your last chance. Put down your weapons and come out with your hands in the air!”

  Zac looked around, absorbing images he would never forget. The interior of the overturned van was quiet and still. It was littered with bullet holes, dented sheet metal, and shattered glass. The poses of the dead bore witness to the violence of the day.

  “Coming out!” he shouted.

  The empty gun slid from his hand.

  “Slowly! Keep your hands where we can see them.”

  Zac staggered out of the van, his hospital gown awash in Olivier’s blood. Pain flashed through his wounded shoulder as he raised his hands in the air. Four men with black balaclavas and suppressed weapons were fanned out across the road. Three of the rifles were trained on the van while the other one swept the area for additional threats. The Iranian driver lay dead on the pavement just a few feet away.

  “Son of a bitch . . .” muttered one of the gunmen upon seeing Zac covered in blood. “Who else is in there?”

  “Everyone’s dead,” Zac responded. “Who are you?”

  The man ignored the question and directed the other team members with hand signals. Zac watched as two men moved toward the van, their muzzles expertly dividing its interior. The men were professionals, but definitely not the police.

  “Clear!” shouted one of the men.

  “All clear!” shouted the man giving the hand signals.

  Two of the men dragged the dead Iranians into the wrecked van while the other two walked toward Zac. When he was ten feet away, the man who’d been giving the hand signals removed his balaclava.

  Zac recoiled as he recognized Ted Graves.

  Christine Kirby pulled her hood off a moment later and Zac took a step back.

  “Welcome home, Miller,” said Graves. He used a medical kit from his vest to quickly clean Zac’s gunshot wounds and cover them with hemostatic dressings. Zac was in a great deal of pain, but he could still move his hand and arm. Graves gave h
im a few acetaminophen tablets.

  One of the CIA security men was busy inside the overturned van while the other one brought a trench coat from the back of the SUV and handed it to Zac.

  “Toss his hospital gown in the van too,” Graves said to the second security man.

  Except for a broken headlight, the Range Rover was undamaged from the crash. The driver stowed his weapon back in the SUV while Kirby and Graves bookended Zac in the backseat with their rifles on their laps. The other CIA security man jogged back to the van with two small canisters.

  The driver turned the Rover toward the side street from which they’d come and opened the passenger door. A siren wailed faintly in the distance. The front-seat passenger threw the canisters into the wrecked van and sprinted to the Range Rover. The supercharged SUV was fifty yards down the road when an earsplitting blast shook the three-ton vehicle. The two incendiary explosives had detonated among the medical oxygen and diesel fuel inside the van. Zac turned and watched as white-hot flames and thick black smoke reached into the sky.

  From the backseat of the Range Rover, he spoke. “Where are we . . .”

  “Not here,” Graves interrupted.

  Zac had a thousand questions, but he relented, not knowing what had transpired between Graves and Peter Clements while Zac had been in the field. The front-seat passenger made a brief phone call but the ride otherwise passed in silence as the SUV wound its way through the English countryside, passing fog-shrouded farms and picturesque hamlets for over an hour.

  The Range Rover turned abruptly into a narrow driveway, where a sturdy iron gate closed behind it. Hidden cameras monitored the SUV’s progress as it sped down the long gravel driveway and pulled in behind a green Jaguar sedan. The five CIA officers entered the Victorian-era farmhouse.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  THE GREEN JAGUAR was owned by a septuagenarian doctor who’d been summoned on the ride over. He ordered Zac to strip down in front of the group and examined him carefully.

  “You’re very fortunate, young man,” said the doctor.

  Zac looked above the half-moon reading glasses, below the bushy eyebrows, and into the doctor’s green eyes for signs of intelligence. Zac was covered in blood, had been in a rollover car accident and shot multiple times, just in the last few hours. Forget about the last month.

  “How do you figure?”

  The doctor gave Zac a grandfatherly smile. “For starters, you’re still very much alive.”

  Well, it’s hard to argue with that, Zac thought. Since his first day in Iran, his continued existence had been anything but a given.

  “Also, the small-caliber bullets seem to have passed through your shoulder area without striking anything vital.” The doctor wagged a finger at him. “Your recovery will be arduous, but complete.”

  The doctor had Zac shower, stitched up his wounds, and gave him a handful of painkillers and antibiotics. Graves walked the doctor to his car while the caretaker of the safe house, a fit man in his early sixties, led Zac to a ground floor bedroom. Kirby followed with the two CIA security men.

  By the time Graves rejoined the others, Zac was already in bed and under a pile of blankets.

  “How are you doing, Zac?” Graves asked.

  “I . . . I’m good,” he mumbled. His eyes were firmly closed.

  “The doctor said the combination of the painkillers and everything else your body has been through might shut you down. Get some sleep. We’ll talk later.”

  Graves motioned to the others and they left the room. Out in the hall, he spoke to the caretaker.

  “Do you have surveillance in that room?”

  The caretaker nodded. “Audio and video.”

  “Good. Feed him, keep him hydrated, give him his meds, and call the doctor with any issues, but don’t let him talk to anyone or take one step outside that room except to use the bathroom. Understood?”

  The caretaker nodded again.

  Graves turned to the two CIA security men. “You two stick around, just in case.”

  “What’s the threat assessment, sir?” asked one of them.

  “I’m going back to the office right now to try to figure that out, but let’s leave it at ‘no one in or out’ until I get back. Get your heavy gear out of the SUV and the caretaker will show you where to set up. He’s a man of few words but he knows what he’s doing. He’s ex-SAS. I’ll have someone reinforce you tonight and I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  * * *

  • • •

  THE NEXT MORNING, the caretaker walked Zac to a modern, windowless conference room in the interior of the farmhouse. A new security officer was outside the door and Ted Graves was seated inside, wearing the same clothes he’d had on the previous day. Zac eyed him warily as he entered.

  “We’ve got a lot to cover and not a lot of time,” Graves said. “Take a seat and tell me what happened in Iran.” Graves closed the manila folder he’d been reviewing.

  Zac lowered himself into a seat at the conference room table.

  “I had a clear view of the site from as soon as I stepped off the plane. The camera from S&T allowed me to see each of the ‘buildings.’ They were all just slabs of re-barred concrete with plywood walls and roofs that were made to look like residential construction. Some of them were superficially damaged by the quake but most were intact because they weren’t bearing any weight. It was all camouflage. The bottom line is they’ve got a dozen nuclear ICBMs in reinforced silos.”

  “How can you be sure the silos are operational, much less loaded with nuclear missiles?”

  “Because one of the blast doors was severely dislocated by the earthquake and I was able to see the tip of a nosecone. It was a Chinese DF-4.”

  “While the political implications of China selling ICBMs to Iran are enormous, that’s for Washington to handle. But wasn’t CIA expecting Iran to use a home-built delivery system for its first ICBM?”

  “We were, most likely a variant of the Shahab-3. In fact, I wrote that assessment, but the DF-4 is very distinctive. It looks like the tip of a crayon. The Iranians must have bought them from the Chinese when they upgraded to the 5As.”

  “But why would they build a launch site on a geological fault line?”

  “Silos are designed to be insulated from shock. That’s how they retain second-strike capability, and building it in such an apparently unsuitable location probably explains why no one has found out about it until now.”

  “How could they have built the silos and loaded the missiles without us knowing? We have persistent surveillance over there. They’re living under the unblinking eye. You said before you left that it was the satellite imagery that turned you onto the area in the first place.”

  “I thought about that a lot,” Zac said. “Do you remember how the whole area is a ‘special economic zone’? They were putting up and tearing down warehouses for years. At the time I thought they were just terrible businessmen, but now I’m starting to think that the whole ‘special economic zone’ was cover for the ICBM program. They built each silo inside a warehouse, then tore it down when they were finished. I’ll bet if we overlay a time sequence of satellite shots, that’s what we’ll find.”

  “So what’s their endgame?” Graves said.

  “That’s way above my pay grade, but how effective is a deterrent that no one knows about?”

  “You think these are offensive weapons?”

  Zac nodded slowly.

  Graves looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “So forget the treaties and screw the sanctions, it’s a fait accompli . . .”

  “Just like it was with North Korea.”

  * * *

  • • •

  THE TWO MEN spent the next few hours discussing the details of Zac’s arrest and escape, his evasion through Dubai and Europe, and his eventual arrival in Britain. At Zac’s request, Graves entered Emma Rogers�
��s name into a computer on the table and learned that she had safely reentered the United States almost two weeks ago.

  Graves told Zac that the accusations of murder in France and Singapore had been disastrous for his credibility, and that there was an INTERPOL Red Notice out for him.

  “You know I didn’t kill those two women, Ted, and I’m going to need the Agency’s help to clear my name.”

  “Don’t be naive, Zac. It doesn’t matter whether you’re innocent or not. The police have your name, your picture, your fingerprints, and your DNA. You’ve already been convicted in absentia by the court of public opinion, but we’ll give you a new name, some plastic surgery, and you’ll be good to go.”

  Zac shook his head. “So that’s it? Zac Miller’s last act on this earth is as a fugitive double-murderer? You were right when you told Peter that I’m not cut out for operations. There’s too much smoke-and-mirrors in it for me. How long until I’m back at my desk?”

  “You’re not going back to a desk, Zac. I have much bigger plans for you. Look at what you’ve accomplished. You had no language skills, no survival training, no money, and no backup plan, yet you successfully completed the mission after being arrested. We all thought the real risk was getting the aircraft into Sirjan without the Iranians shooting it down.” Graves looked across the table with genuine admiration. “You have gifts that no amount of training can teach. There are people like you who risk their lives every day to keep this country safe. You know firsthand how ruthless our enemies can be. The field is your true calling. Zac Miller died in that van yesterday for a reason. Your new life in operations starts today.”

  “I don’t know, Ted. I need to talk to Peter about this.”

  “Clements doesn’t enter into this!” Graves said.

  “He most definitely enters into this. He’s chief of station.”