“The location in the alleyway in which the body was found was not visible to the OGS at the time of the event. I believe this is purely coincidental. However, the OGS did note an individual roughly matching the earlier signatures of the Chinese intelligence officer enter the eastern end of the alleyway at 0317. At 0320, the OGS noted another individual departing the western end of the alleyway and then going to and entering the building we believe houses our suspected Khan group member. The signatures of this other individual match those of the person photographed by the Japanese tourist on the day of the meeting between the Khan group suspect and the ISI official.”
I finished dressing. “Speculate, please.”
“The individual seen exiting the western end of the alleyway may be a bodyguard for our suspect and it was this individual who encountered and murdered the Chinese intelligence officer.”
“Killing the Chinese officer demonstrates a very high degree of discomfort with his presence,” I offered, “suggesting that the Khan group is nearing some important juncture in its activities. It also suggests that they had noticed him in their operating environment earlier, probably more than once. Presuming that the other individual is the suspect’s bodyguard, it appears that he immediately went to roost to tell his client that he had just killed the Chinese. They will move the suspect to another location. The OGS must be prepared for this. What is the present location of the suspect and the other individual?”
“They are both still in the building. No one has exited since the other individual entered it at 0321,” came the Machine’s response.
“The OGS must track the movements of both individuals, as a priority.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Given that their nerves are already tense, I think it’s time that we fray them a little,” I said, “and watch how they jump.”
“I agree.”
I telephoned the front desk and ordered continental. I then sat down, picked up my smartphone and began to work with the Machine.
The smell of jasmine filtered through the shutters from outside. In the distance, the morning call of the Muezzezin beckoned believers to their prayerful duties.
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I was deep into the old part of the city, taking photos of the surrounding architecture as the morning light caught it awakening. The contrasts of light and shadow on doorways and window ledges and along the edges of ornately constructed walls in narrow streets provided a sense of tranquility. Few people were about. The coming day’s heat was only an anticipation.
“The target remains stationary in the vicinity of the murder scene, at the same location as last reported,” the Machine stated in response to my earlier question.
The OGS still had not noticed the Khan group suspect leave the building we believed he occupied. I found this unsettling. He should have moved. His bodyguard, after having murdered the Chinese intelligence officer, surely would have moved him. But we hadn’t seen it.
As I squatted to take a particularly striking photo of a ray of sunlight illuminating the side of a copper pot lying askew next to the entrance of a boulangerie, I asked the Machine to again review the images of the group of women seen leaving the building at 0522. I asked it specifically to speculate if the suspect could have departed the building with them on their way to their various morning chores. The Machine told me that it was possible, but the head-to-foot coverings worn by the apparent group of women and the limited biometric readings of the suspect available to it had prevented it from isolating his identity among them, if indeed he had been among them.
I stood and continued to meander through the narrow walkways in this part of the city, most of it still in deep shadow, alibi in hand for all to see. The sun was still very low on the eastern horizon.
What the OGS had noted was the exit of the bodyguard from the building at 0533 and his loitering in the area of the murder scene. Our CONOP was: if we were uncertain of the location of the suspect, but we knew the location of his bodyguard, then we need only come into close contact with the latter to determine the location of the former. It had worked in the past on more than one occasion.
The bodyguard – like so many criminals before him – had returned to the scene of the crime. In his case, this was understandable. He needed to know – to overhear – if he was in any way whatsoever implicated. His need was my compass. Like a magnet, he was pulling me toward him.
But he needed to move. The Machine had shown me his location earlier on my PI. I had looked at a real-time video image of the man taken from 500 kilometers above him. I could see the tattoo on his left forearm. The Machine had telescoped the image higher and away from the man to show me his location in relation to his surroundings. I could see that his present location was too exposed for my purposes. I needed him alone, if only for a short period of time. To satisfy my need, he needed to move. We were waiting for him to do that while the Machine guided me closer toward him, but not too close. I didn’t want to expose my image to him until the very last instant.
I felt like the pilot of a ground attack aircraft being held back – out of the area of engagement – by a controller, until the target presented itself. I was loitering.
“The target is moving, southeast, in your general direction. I have identified five locations for you to interact with him in that general area. Presently, he is 77 meters distant from you. Proceed straight ahead at a normal pace until otherwise advised.”
I immediately began walking straight ahead. The Machine would track the target – hopefully to one of the five selected locations – and try to get me into position to interact with him there at precisely the right moment. If the target did not move to one of the five locations, the Machine would look for alternate locations that offered acceptable risk. I knew from personal experience that it had done this type of thing flawlessly before. It was an artist at it. I simply needed to follow its instructions precisely, and then interact with the target very quickly and briefly. If I did this and luck was with us, the target would not know what had really happened to him or who had done it. It was all a matter of timing.
“60 meters. Continue on this course. Tracking data has been relayed to your PIs.” I followed the Machine’s direction, and, as I walked, took out my smartphone, let it register my handling of it, felt the brief vibration, and then looked at the overhead image it displayed of the land area through which the target and I were walking. The image showed our moving locations, his in red and mine in black.
“At the upcoming T-junction, go to the right, then immediately left.” I did this.
“Proceed straight ahead, then take the next right. I detect no one following you. The target is 53 meters distant and walking perpendicular to your present course – left to right.” I took the next right. A fly lifted from my vest and flew off ahead of me.
“Stop and wait.” I stopped. I un-shouldered my camera, took aim down the still dimly lit alleyway – only two people in front of me, both moving away – and captured a series of images. The light in this quiet area of the old city was rather soothing to the eye and mind as I stalked my target, moving closer to him. I looked at my PI and saw that he had stopped on his course, now parallel to mine, but thirty meters distant. I thought he might be checking for a tail – a good sign. He wouldn’t spot mine, unless he could see things 500 kilometers away.
I saw on the PI where the Machine hoped to intersect my course with that of the target - an area highlighted in much lighter contrast. It was a relatively short and narrow space that would take me left, right and then left again. A red box was present in the space after the right turn that I would take. This marked the location at which the Machine intended me to interact with the target. It took advantage of my right-handedness – an unnecessary, but thoughtful touch. I liked that. I would need to act quickly when I met him.
As I finished my glance at the PI, I saw the target start to move again.
“Acceptable,” I said.
“Take the next right. You are now approaching the meeting area. The target is 25 meters distant and moving toward it. There are no individuals following you or the target and there are no individuals in the meeting area.”
I took the right turn. “Take the next left. The alleyway will then turn quickly to your right again, at which point you will be at the meeting site. Stop there and wait. The target is approaching from the opposite direction from the left and is 18 meters distant.”
I took the left turn and after six paces turned to the right. I took a dozen paces, stopped and waited there. I very briefly looked up and noted the third floor window still shut and curtained. I slipped the camera bag and camera around onto my back and crouched lower, reducing the height of my image to him.
“You are alone with the target. He will turn the corner in front of you” – I saw a shadow appear on the ground in front of me from around the corner – “now.”
Dim light. Narrow spaces. Not much room in which to move. Not much light to define movement. His right arm lashed out at my neck. Very fast. I blocked the arm and trapped the hand, turning it back over and toward him, exposing the nerve, and whip struck it, immobilizing his arm. The second man had partially recovered from the eye strike and, staggering, sought to come to his accomplice’s aid. I spun him around and struck his left kidney with a half-fist. He arched his back and sank to the ground, groaning. The first man had controlled his pain and now sought to buckle my left leg with a kick to the side of the knee. I had expected this, given the weakened condition of his arm, moved closer toward him and just to the side of his extended leg, dropped to my left knee, spun and used an open palm to the side of his left knee, driving it home with the force driven from my right leg. Completely off balance, the first man toppled and I smashed the back of his head down into the pavement. The third man had never stood back up after I traumatized his carotid during the opening seconds of the engagement.
Felipe blew his whistle – a shrill sound intended to break the mind’s fixation from its blood lust. Everyone stopped – the three trainers and I. No one had been seriously hurt. All my strikes had been pulled – none given the full force that would have been provided had this engagement been real, taking place in some dim and narrow alleyway in some city, somewhere, instead of in a training environment controlled by the Grid. Felipe had approached me, watched my breathing, looked at my skin color, looked for any trembling of limbs or extremities or erratic eye movement. He nodded. “Better, but if there had been a fourth man who appeared unexpectedly, you were in no position at the end to deal with him.” Felipe is never happy – you just have to accept this. I have. His unhappiness has saved my life on more than one occasion. Felipe’s approach to survival is – if you want to be certain of defeating a single man in any circumstance, fight two or three together. “You are almost there – almost.” Years ago, he had turned and walked away.
The eye strike immediately blinded him as he turned the corner. He had no chance to see who had struck him. Although I imagined him to be trained, his hands flew instinctively to his eyes. I stepped to the side and drove a half-fist into the side of his neck. As his body turned left and slightly downward, I struck him in the throat. He collapsed against the wall and fell to the ground. This had taken 3 seconds.
“You are still alone with the target. No one is approaching.”
I took out a small pocketknife and levered open its small ink pen. I knelt, placed it on his carotid artery and pressed, releasing a micro-needle, tagging him. A fly landed on the collar of his shirt and worked its way underneath.
I went through his pockets, taking what money and papers he had, then stood and walked away.
CHAPTER 6 – Uncertainty
“How could this happen? I was told – you told me” – stretching out his right arm and pointing the index finger of his right hand at the other man’s face – “you are very good at what you do. Your brother told me. You told me yourself that you were trained to do this,” he paused, searching for the words, ‘close protection.’ Tell me, how could this happen?” He was yelling at the man I had encountered in the narrow alleyway more than two hours earlier. He was angry, but more – he was frightened. He was young, perhaps in his early thirties, slight of build and, yet he was yelling at the older and much larger man, who stood silently in front of him. The larger man was looking at him, not bowed, but still and silent. I was learning more by the second about my adversaries.
The Device was operating well, showing me the view of the two men in an austerely decorated room: a small table and four chairs, a narrow bed and mattress, and a couch with well-worn covering. Via the OGS, the Machine was controlling the placement of the Device and the audio and video images I was seeing clearly on my PI. We knew precisely the location of the two men – in which building, on which floor, in which room, and where in that room. The Machine had tracked the larger man there from where I had briefly encountered and tagged him. The Machine was providing me instantaneous translation – Pashto to English - of what was being said in that room.
“Explain this to me, Rashid,” the younger man yelled. A name to a face. Always a useful thing.
“Please calm yourself,” Rashid began, his voice still rasping from the throat strike. He held up his hand, palm outward toward the younger man, as the latter started to interrupt. The younger man stopped. Rashid continued, “Please, your Excellency. Your brother gave me orders to keep you safe while you carry out his instructions.”
“Yes, Rashid, he did. But now I am worried. Who attacked you and why? I am worried that my brother’s instructions and plans are under threat. He would never forgive me should I fail him.” He brought his hand to his own throat, as he said these last words – as if protecting himself.
“I do not know who attacked me. As I told you, Excellency, my attacker took my money and the false identity papers I carried. So perhaps it was a simple robbery. However, I question this thought because of the manner in which I was attacked. It was efficient and very fast. More than one would expect from street thieves.”
The younger man gazed at Rashid, concern in his eyes, and asked, “Could it have been another Chinese agent?”
Rashid responded, holding the other man’s look, “The momentary image I had of the attacker I saw could match that of a Chinese – short and stocky – and we know they are well trained in unarmed combat. However, I do not believe that the Chinese agent I killed last night saw me then or earlier. So how could another Chinese have known to attack me, and if it was another Chinese agent, why did he not kill me?”
“To follow you here, Rashid. Are you absolutely certain that you were not followed to this place? You must be absolutely certain. Much depends on it. Am I safe, Rashid?”
“After I regained consciousness, I had the sense to move in a direction away from this place, not toward it. I am trained and not a fool, Excellency!” The younger man was watching Rashid closely. “I spent more than one hour making certain – absolutely – that no one was following me. You are safe, Excellency. I swear it!”
“While I am confident in my training and assessment, Excellency,” Rashid continued, “I cannot explain who attacked me and why. Therefore, I too am concerned that your brother’s plans may have come to someone’s attention. You must act cautiously. I believe you should accelerate our activities here and return immediately to inform your brother of what has happened. It will do no harm to your brother’s plan to finish here earlier than anticipated. You have been provided the operating instructions. That was the critical objective here. Now we need only finish with your brother’s woman and send his message to her family.”
The younger man had been staring intently at Rashid and nodding his head ever more strongly as Rashid spoke, but now looked down as he spoke these last words.
“I will accept your assessment, Rashid, that I am safe – at least for now. Still, I agree that we must accelerate our activities and return to tell my brother what has happened here. He is organizing his final preparations now. As for my brother’s woman, I leave it with you and some of the men to deal with her. I have no (the PI showed the younger man hesitating, looking away from and then back at Rashid, as if searching for the right word, as if ashamed should he use the wrong one) will for this honor killing of the woman. You know that I attempted to dissuade him from carrying out this deed. But he insists, so let it be done. She is only a woman. Do it tonight in that building outside of town where you have her. It is away from others who might hear. At the end, make it quick for her.”
“I will do my best, Excellency.”
“Package the part for the message to her father and family and bring the package to me. Leave some of the men here with me for my security.”
Rashid bowed curtly to the younger man, turned and left him alone in the room. The younger man stood there for some time, staring toward a window obscured by dirt and grime on the far side of the room. He appeared deep in thought. Some sunlight had worked its way through the window and partially lit his face. As he stood there – relaxed in his sense of seclusion and surrounding security - the Device rested high on a wall near the door in shadow, three meters away, watching him.
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The Grid Page 5