by Mason Cross
“How comfortable are you talking on this phone?”
“It’s secure,” she said, though she and I knew that was relative. It was secure only as far as the balance of probability said nobody looking for me would be tapping a federal agent’s phone hundreds of miles away. After a second, she added, “But let me give you another number, just in case.”
She read out what I guessed was the number of her personal phone, and I memorized that one as well before hanging up and redialing. A minute later we were talking again.
“So what do you need?”
Same old Banner—no time wasted finding out if this was a social call to catch up after all these months. I wasn’t sure she’d have welcomed such a call from me, in any case.
“I’m in a little trouble,” I said. I quickly explained the key events of the last few hours: the photograph of Martinez’s body that told me I was being hunted. Coop’s murder down in Florida. The shooting at the airport.
“That explains it,” she said when I mentioned the airport.
“How do you mean?”
“The Sea-Tac thing. Homeland Security have a lid on it tighter than two coats of paint. Lots of speculation, no IDs on the suspects. Now I know at least part of the reason.”
“Let me guess—need-to-know, national security, all that kind of thing?”
“That’s about right. What the hell did you do, Blake? I mean, Homeland Security is after you?”
“No. Not Homeland Security. Somebody who can make a call to Homeland Security and has enough pull for some no-questions-asked cover from them. For the time being, at least.”
“On second thought, I don’t want to know. I mean, I can just about give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not a terrorist.”
“Which is why you remain one of my very favorite FBI agents.”
“Skip it,” she said. “Just tell me what you need.”
I did as requested, giving her the basics. No more information than she needed, and leaving out where exactly I was. Not because I thought Banner would tell anybody, but because it was in both our interests if she didn’t know too much. Finally, I explained that I was carrying some excess baggage in the form of a two-hundred-pound fugitive software developer and that sticking together wasn’t likely to result in a pleasant outcome for either of us.
She listened, not interrupting again after the airport part. When I finished, she was quiet for a moment. I wondered if she was thinking, or just considering whether or not to hang up and forget she had ever met me. To tell the truth, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. I hated to ask her for help, but with Coop dead, she was one of the only people in the world I trusted to be able to help us without putting herself in harm’s way. And she was certainly the only one within easy reach of any of the stops on the Empire Builder route.
“Bad luck seems to follow you around, Blake,” she said at last.
“That it does.”
And then she started talking and I realized she hadn’t been considering not helping me. She had just been working everything out in her head. “Okay, I have an off-the-books safe house we might be able to use. Let me make a few calls. It’ll only be for a few days, max.”
“A few days is great. In a few days I’ll have made this go away, or …”
“I get the picture. How close are you right now?”
I turned and looked out the window at the dark landscape rushing past. “We’re taking the long way,” I said. “We’ll be there in two days: Saturday, evening time.”
There was a pause, and I could tell she had already worked out how I was traveling. She had the grace not to mention it.
“That’s good. Gives me some time to set things up quietly. What number do I call you on?”
“You don’t. This has to be our last conversation until Saturday night.”
“All right. So you better tell me everything you need now.”
I laid out what we’d need to safely stash Bryant away, plus a few more requests that would entail Banner breaking a few more state and federal laws and putting her career in jeopardy. At the end of it, she simply said, “Okay. Let’s say seven o’clock. You remember the last place we saw each other?”
“Of course.” I wasn’t likely to forget, for a couple of reasons. This was going to be a different kind of meeting altogether.
“See you then,” she said, getting ready to hang up. I stopped her.
“Banner … Thank you.”
“I’ll see you on Saturday.”
The line went dead. I held the handset for a moment before replacing it. The odds were still stacked against me. Even if everything went to plan in Chicago, I still had a long way to go to get clear of this. A hell of a long way. But for the first time in twenty-four hours, it felt like I’d managed to wrestle back some small measure of control over my destiny.
FIVE YEARS AGO
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN
It had been hotter the last time I had visited Kandahar. The daylight hours were still relatively warm, even in November, but the nights brought bone-chilling temperatures when it was clear, and sometimes snow. We had passed the wrecks of old Soviet-era armor on the way in: tanks and BTR-60s, lying abandoned in the desert like a warning. It had been less than three weeks since I had received that unwanted call from Murphy, but it seemed like a lot longer.
In truth, I’d been keeping too busy to think about Carol all that often. I hadn’t even thought too much about my conversations with Senator Carlson. Because so far, the job we had been assigned had reminded me of why I did what I did.
It was one of those operations for which Winterlong was perfectly equipped. A bomb maker building his notoriety through a series of deadly coordinated attacks across Afghanistan and across the border into Pakistan. All the indications were that he had the skills and ruthlessness to escalate to worse—and potentially on US soil. His nom de guerre translated as the “Wolf.”
The trouble was, that was virtually the only thing that was known about him. Whereas the US military’s other high-value targets had their images and vital statistics plastered over posters and printed on cards carried by troops in the field, the Wolf was an enigma. The local CIA operatives and others had been trying in vain to identify the Wolf for the best part of eighteen months. Along the way, some had speculated that there was no Wolf, that it was a propaganda exercise capitalizing on a general upswing in the professionalism and effectiveness of the Taliban insurgents. But the investigation teams clearing up after the many suicide attacks credited to the Wolf showed that there was a consistent signature. A hallmark to each of his atrocities.
A bomb disposal tech who had defused one of his efforts in downtown Kabul had given him another name: “the Michael Jordan of bombers.” The guy was good. There was a seemingly inexhaustible supply of angry young men willing to drive his bombs into military checkpoints or crowded marketplaces, and it was difficult to do anything about that, short-term. But if the source of the lethally effective car and truck bombs could be traced and eliminated, it would save a lot of lives.
But it had been eighteen months, and nobody could find the Wolf’s lair. The best intelligence we had suggested his base of operations was Kandahar, in the south of the country. Cross-referencing the bombing locations had suggested that, as did an intercepted message that suggested the Wolf made his home somewhere in the city.
So as time went by with no results, the sense of frustration began to reach higher in the command pyramid, until somebody made a call and six men were chosen. The assignment was standard: Go in with a small team and as much time as we need, build the intelligence, zero the target, put him out of action. Throwing manpower at the situation hadn’t worked, so the powers that be had decreed that it was time for a subtler approach.
There were two shooters: Dixon, two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle with a penchant for using knives, and Murphy, the oldest member of the team. Murphy was a little less physically imposing than Dixon, but more than made up for it in understa
ted intelligence. There were two signals intelligence specialists: Martinez was tall, a little younger than the rest of us, and either aloof or just quiet. Collins was smaller and more wiry, with premature gray hair. Collins was in operational command, but by the nature of the setup, that didn’t mean much from minute to minute. It just meant that he had final say when more than one potential course of action presented itself.
That left myself and Ortega on front of house, as we called it. Meaning we handled hum-int, or human intelligence: the people part of the equation. Ortega was a little shorter than average, with a straight scar down the right side of his face and a mean streak a mile wide.
I had worked with only two of the other five men before, and I didn’t particularly like either of them. Murphy was a skilled operator, and amiable enough, but I knew I could trust him about as far as I could spit him. As for Dixon … From our brief encounters, it was clear he was one of Drakakis’s black hats. In a unit as secretive as this one, with every mission hermetically sealed, there was a whole lot I didn’t know about the guy. But the rumors fit well with my impression of the man and with the file Carlson had shown me in New York. Something was broken inside him, and I was starting to think it was the character trait that made him most useful to our superiors.
But we had a job to do, and until I figured out an exit strategy and a way to give Senator Carlson what he needed, this job was one that needed doing. After two weeks of painstaking work building on the existing intelligence, I had finally shaken loose a promising lead. The only problem was, I was required to follow up on it alone. Sneaking in someone else as backup simply wasn’t worth the risk, in terms of the mission.
Moving around the city in daylight hours was never the preferred option, so I was still unsure that I’d made the right decision as Murphy dropped me off at the street corner my contact had named. I hadn’t written the directions down, but I knew where to go from here.
“Keep your phone on,” Murphy said quietly as I stepped out of the car onto the street. The omnipresent smell of dirty car fumes assaulted my nose. “I’ll see you back at the safe house at fourteen hundred.”
I nodded. I certainly hoped I would.
The street corner was at the far end of a bazaar, beside a fruit store with its freshest and most colorful wares displayed outside to tempt passersby. I walked to the farthest of these and pretended to examine a mountain of pomegranates, then turned and raised my eyes to the second floor of the building across the way. There was a row of small windows, each one above a door on the ground level. I counted along the row. Three windows from the right-hand side of the building, there was a red vase in the center of the ledge. My eyes dropped down to the door immediately below.
I patted the right-hand side of my chest gently to reassure myself that my Beretta M9 was still there, and waited for a gap in the traffic to cross the road. The door was plain and unadorned, apart from a circular handle. I twisted the handle and found it unlocked, as expected. It opened onto an unlit passageway: stone floor, stucco walls. I closed the door behind me, as per my detailed instructions, immediately glad to be off the busy street.
There was another door at the far end that was ajar and let in just enough daylight to see by. There were two closed doors on the left-hand side of the corridor. I ignored them and made for the one that was open. As I got close to the sliver of daylight, I felt an unfamiliar tightness in my chest. I hesitated at the door and listened, not sure what I expected to hear. If I was walking into a trap, whoever was out there wouldn’t be making any noise. Up until this moment, I had been sure enough that this offer was legit. I was happy with the risk-to-benefit balance. But now, standing in front of this door, I suddenly felt a great unease. I swallowed it down and forced my mind to work on a purely operational level. I drew my weapon, clicked the safety off, and held it down by my side. I held my breath and pushed the door open all the way.
It gave onto a small, dusty courtyard. The sun was directly overhead. My eyes darted to cover the space, finding no one at ground level before catching movement above. I raised my gun, then quickly dropped it again when I saw a woman in a burqa hanging brightly colored laundry over the railing of her balcony. I turned my body to the side to conceal my gun as she glanced down and eyed me briefly with disinterest.
I let out the breath and passed quickly across the center of the courtyard to the doorway on the opposite side. This one was just a gap in the wall. Bare, rusted hinges told me there had once been a door there, but not for a long time. Through that, there was another unlit corridor with an unlocked door at the end. This one let me out on a narrow alleyway.
For the first time since I had left the car, the miasma of smog was blotted out by an even more pungent aroma. An irrigation ditch ran down the edge of the alley, filled with raw sewage. I remembered the instructions—turn left, then knock on the fourth door on the right.
The fourth door was a slab of featureless steel with one unadorned keyhole and a narrow slit-hatch. No handle. I knocked softly four times. The hatch opened after a second.
“Yes?”
I answered in Pashto, telling him I was a friend of Karim’s. I had no idea who the hell Karim was, but it was what I’d been instructed to say.
There was a pause. If this really was a trap, I was about to know about it.
“Do you have a gun?” he asked, in English.
I hesitated and then took the Beretta out again, holding it up slowly by the muzzle, taking great care not to point anywhere near the hatch.
“Pass it through. The butt first.”
I did as I was asked, adding my own wordless condition by removing the magazine first. The gun was pulled inside, and then there was silence for almost a minute. Long enough for me to start wondering if I’d been had.
But then I heard the rattle of a big key turning in the lock, and the door swung silently outward on greased hinges.
A tall, bearded Arab man stood before me, dressed in the standard dishdasha. He held a Colt .45 pointed squarely at my midsection. He looked me over and then he jerked his head back.
“Come in.”
I entered a small, enclosed vestibule. I wasn’t surprised when the tall man immediately gripped the back of my shirt and pushed me against the wall, frisking me for a second weapon. He didn’t find any—I was traveling light. When he was satisfied, he lowered his gun and told me to go through into the building. I entered what I now realized was the back room of a store. DVDs in plastic wallets were stacked high on shelving units lining each wall, mostly pirated Hollywood blockbusters and porn. There were boxes of cheap phones, too. I would know where to come next time I needed a supply of burners. In the far corner was a small office desk with a laptop and one of those banker’s lamps with the green shades. It seemed oddly out of place.
“Have a seat,” my new friend said, indicating the swivel chair in front of the desk.
I did as asked, and looked up expectantly. He lit a cigarette, taking his time, and inhaled deeply.
“I am Ahmad,” he said finally, offering his hand
I shook it. “Call me Smith,” I said. I saw his brown eyes flicker with amusement. We had picked equally anonymous pseudonyms. It was almost a sign of mutual respect: neither of us wanted to insult the other’s intelligence by even attempting to pretend we were using our real names. Each of us knew that Ahmad and Smith would cease to exist the moment this meeting was over.
“The money is okay?” Ahmad asked, meaning, had I gotten it authorized?
“It is. All I need is the name. Who is the Wolf?”
“Better than that, my friend, I have a name and an address.”
I was intrigued. “That would certainly make my job easier.”
He smirked. “I don’t think so.”
“I don’t understand.”
He handed me a slip of paper with some Arabic script at the top. Below it was an address translated to English, printed in small, neat capitals. “The man you are looking for is currently at this house
. He goes by the name Ajmal al Wazir.”
I recognized the name, and started to get an inkling of what the smirk a moment ago had meant. The only rich people in Afghanistan are the politicians. The reason for that is they get to skim from any money that comes into the country for infrastructure. If twenty million comes earmarked for building schools, each level of the establishment takes a cut along the way, so that perhaps a few hundred thousand makes it to the school-building program. In Kandahar, many of the top levels of that tree of corruption held the name Wazir.
“The al Wazirs are hiding the Wolf?”
He shook his head. “Not hiding. He is one of them. And now you see why this was so expensive?” He studied me, as though expecting me to challenge him on the information.
“Give me two hours. If this checks out, you get the bonus.”
“Okay,” he said after a moment, and handed me back my gun. “A pleasure doing business with you. When you go back out there, turn right instead of left, and the alley will bring you out on Shafakhana Sarak.”
“Thank you.”
“Good luck, Smith.”
I holstered my weapon, then left the way I had come in. I took the right and emerged onto the bustling thoroughfare of Shafakhana Sarak. I watched the people walking to and fro, as heedless of anything else as any Western pedestrians going about their business in the big city. I wondered how they could do that, when the risk of being suddenly blown to pieces was exponentially higher than in New York or London or Berlin. Because of men like the Wolf.
If my target really was a member of the house of al Wazir, it explained why it had taken so much effort and money to get his location.
The safe house was just under two miles away in the Zoar Shar area of the city, Old Kandahar. It wasn’t hard to navigate through the back alleys by recalling the map in my head.
As I walked, I returned to the other question that had been keeping me awake nights, when the hard work of the mission took a break from distracting me. What the senator had said hadn’t exactly surprised me—that was the worst thing about it. I had been wondering for the last couple of weeks whether Carlson’s mole was with us on this mission, and if so, which of the other five he was. I almost didn’t care. I wanted to do the job, go home, and disappear—forget about Winterlong and Carlson. All of a sudden, the quiet, building urge I’d had for the past few months to get out of this organization had become an imperative.