by Brad Taylor
“Yes?”
The man wiped the sweat from his upper lip. “You get a FedEx package here yesterday?”
“What business is it of yours?”
“It’s my business because I know what’s in it. And if you don’t give me some money, I’m going to let the cops know.”
Keshawn was completely taken aback. This man wasn’t the fighter. He was something else entirely. He didn’t know how the man had knowledge of the delivery, but he did know one thing: The bum was a threat.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Keshawn said. “Cops? For what?”
The bum was sweating profusely now, fidgeting left and right. “Just give me a hundred bucks, and I’ll leave.”
Keshawn stood back from the door, his mind running through options, none of which he could execute on the front stoop. “Come inside. I have some money in here.”
“That’s okay. I’m not stupid. Bring the money to me out here.”
Keshawn looked left and right, seeing no one in the deserted industrial area. He reached back like he was pulling out a wallet, withdrawing a four-inch folding knife instead. He flicked out the blade and whipped it straight into the man’s abdomen, blade up, stabbing deep and ripping upward toward the heart. He clamped his other hand on the man’s jacket and held him upright while he continued to cut, finally hitting the bone of the rib cage. The man shrieked, his eyes bugging out of his head. Keshawn jerked him inside, the door slamming shut on its mechanical arm. He tossed the bum on the ground, watching him writhe around in a growing pool of blood, desperately attempting to staunch the flow. He knew the man was going to die in seconds.
He grabbed the bum’s hair to get him to focus. “Who told you about the shipment?”
The homeless man gargled, holding his hands to his stomach, his eyes rolling back in his head.
“Who, motherfucker, who?”
The man was unresponsive, either dead or unconscious. Keshawn kicked him, then kicked the wall.
“Fuck!”
He heard another knock from outside. What the hell? He quickly glanced at himself, seeing blood on his right hand up to the wrist. He thought about jumping out of the window at the back of the warehouse, but grabbed a shop rag instead. Wiping off the blood, he cracked the door a second time.
Standing on the other side was wiry man with a hawkish nose. His complexion was swarthy, but what caught Keshawn’s attention were his eyes. Black pools that reflected something dangerous. Perhaps something irrational as well. Just as he could smell a cop from across the street, Keshawn knew this man had been inside a prison. And not an easy one.
The fighter.
The man spoke calmly and lightly. “I’m Rafik. You must be Keshawn. May I come in?”
Keshawn said nothing, simply holding open the door, unsure of what he should do, his mind spinning. The simple question, given the killing he’d just done, seemed surreal.
Rafik walked inside and barely glanced at the eviscerated homeless man.
“You did well. I’m sorry for the deception, but I had to be sure of who you were.”
“You sent him to me? Why? Suppose I let him go?”
“I would have killed him. And then killed you.”
The confusion wearing off, Keshawn bristled, growing angry at being played like a child at a magic show. “Really? You think so? You ain’t in raghead land now.”
Rafik smiled, completely calm. “I asked for your forgiveness. I needed to be sure of your commitment. To be sure you wouldn’t run at the first hint of trouble. We are on a path that may require sacrifice. I had to be sure you were up to the task.”
Keshawn said, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m ready.”
Rafik narrowed his eyes and flicked his toe at the body on the floor. “This is nothing. I mean real sacrifice.”
Beth’s struggle in the bathtub flashed in Keshawn’s mind, her arms flailing around for leverage to raise her head, water splashing over the tub, the burst of bubbles as her involuntary response overcame her conscious attempt to stave off death, the tub growing cold as he held her limp body, one of her arms draped over the edge, the metronomic drips of water falling from a finger, getting farther and farther apart.
He felt Rafik’s eyes on him. “I know about sacrifice,” he said. “Believe me, I know.”
Rafik said nothing for a moment, then nodded. “The time is almost here. You had no trouble with the DHL shipment?”
Glad to talk about anything to rid him of the memories, Keshawn led him to the Pelican cases. “No issues whatsoever. I haven’t opened them, so I don’t know if anything was lost.”
“You didn’t open the cases?”
“Well, I didn’t know what was in them, so it made no sense to see if something was stolen.”
Pleased at the obedient response, Rafik opened both cases and smiled. “Nothing missing.”
Keshawn saw only metal plates and plastic buckets. “What the fuck is this?”
“You’ll find out with everyone else. You’ve done well with the warehouse. This is where we’ll build the method of destruction and train the men. One team at a time. Is the meeting set for Richmond?”
“Yeah. Carl’s got an apartment outside the airport. Everyone’s traveling down there now and should be there in a couple of days.”
Rafik clapped him on the shoulder. “Perfect. Let’s clean up this mess and continue our journey.”
The calmness of the conversation, considering the spreading pool of blood and the gutted body with its rictus grimace, sent a sliver of unease into Keshawn. Maybe he’s not firing on all cylinders.
49
The room stank of stale designer coffee and fried rice. The conference table was littered with takeout cartons and Styrofoam cups, a large fruit bowl in the center holding the sad remnants of a bunch of grapes. Kurt supposed nobody wanted to be the one to eat the last bit of food.
He rested his head against the wall with his legs extended from his back-row seat behind the conference table, watching the members of the Oversight Council fidget while they waited on the arrival of the president. He had briefed them on the activities in Prague, filling in the holes from the information that had come out of the DOS and CIA’s own intelligence apparatus. The story on the street was of a large raid by the Prague police based on the intelligence of a woman “informant” on the inside of an Albanian sex-slave ring. Kurt had cracked open the truth.
As expected, the council had been incredulous. The team had completely overstepped their bounds, potentially causing an international crisis that could destroy American credibility during a time when the United States was trying to regain its footing in the world. Truth be told, Kurt half hoped they’d shut the whole project down. The pressure on him was enormous, affecting his ability to make decisions that were in the nation’s best interest. Calling his sleep fitful was being polite. His entire life had been dedicated to defending the constitution of the United States, and after 9/11 the Taskforce had seemed one more step on that road, but now things were spinning out of control.
An attack was coming, and the team was doing its best to combat it, but at what cost? When was enough truly enough? When would the council say the rule of law outweighed the death that was coming? He despised Secretary of State Brookings, thinking the weasel cared only about his own career, but he understood the reticence.
If Pike’s actions in Prague became public knowledge, it would affect innumerable security arrangements on the European continent, which would inevitably trickle into trade negotiations and every other issue. Kurt understood that better than most, even while the council looked at him as a knuckle dragger. America no longer had the luxury of going it alone in the world. With globalization, everything was intertwined.
Then there was the domestic problem. If the Taskforce was exposed, nobody in the room had any illusions of how it would play out. Best case, the political apparatus would have a brief seizure, with a few weeks of twenty-four-hour talking heads frothing at the mouth
and the usual rounds of congressional testimony before it faded from the national consciousness.
Worst case, the damage would be permanent.
Either way, all in the room knew it would be permanent for them. At the back of everyone’s mind was the election less than six months away, with the opposition furiously trying to find something to harm the president.
On the heels of Kurt’s brief was the latest intel on the attack. The chatter had continued unabated, with nothing concrete. The only new intelligence gleaned was a cryptic reference to the attackers being “homegrown,” which, coupled with the lost EFPs, scared the hell out of everyone in the room.
The council was split in half on whether to let the team follow the trail to Budapest. Like a hung jury, they had argued for the better part of ten hours, and were now simply going to toss the problem into the president’s lap. Let him make the decision. Kurt thought it was cowardly, but he didn’t get a vote.
Without fanfare, the door swung open and President Warren entered. Caught off guard, everyone jerked upright, some standing, others attempting to do so.
“Keep your seats. Sorry to make you wait. Other things going on.”
The room gave a collective nod as he took his seat at the head of the conference table. Kurt surveyed the crowd to see who had changed demeanor at the president’s arrival. None appeared to do so, probably out of exhaustion.
“Well, what have we got?”
Alexander Palmer, the president’s national security advisor, was the man chosen to brief both sides of the argument. He cleared his throat and said, “Well, sir, we have a significant ability to stop the attack, but the risks may well be worse than the aftermath.”
Warren took that in, then nodded for Palmer to continue. Palmer relayed all that had happened in Prague, ending with the lead on the terrorists attempting to get explosives in Budapest for the EFPs.
Warren didn’t need a map drawn out. After a lifetime of politics, he instantly calculated the risks of what the team had done. As well as the rewards.
When Palmer was done, he said, “Okay. What’s the vote?”
Palmer said, “Well, the vote’s split. The potential repercussions are enormous. May already be enormous. But the terrorist plot is real. No doubt. Given the EFPs, they don’t plan on a single assault. It’s going to be big.”
Warren smiled. “And you want me to make the vote.”
Everyone shifted in their chairs, looking left and right.
Warren said, “Kurt, what do you think?”
Kurt pulled his head off the wall, leaned forward, and said, “I think this is why someone’s called the president. Let ’em get out their views. But you have to make a decision.”
Warren narrowed his brow. Kurt refused to glance away from the most powerful man on earth, but he softened the blow. “Sir, there aren’t any easy answers. I could tell you what I think, but I’m not the president. Hear what the council thinks, then ask me.”
Kurt saw Secretary of State Brookings staring at him. For the first time without contempt.
Warren said, “Okay, give it to me.”
Palmer went first. “Well, there’s no doubt what they did was a good thing. I mean, Jesus, they saved twelve girls from a lifetime of pain. But they probably destroyed our entire counterterrorist infrastructure. Personally, I’d like to fucking hang Pike from the nearest tree. The guy doesn’t understand what he’s doing. We can’t have him running around like this. Lord knows what he’ll do in Budapest. He’s leaving a trail that can be unraveled by anyone with an Internet connection.”
The director of central intelligence cut in. “Hang on. I don’t want to act like I’m on his side, but Pike’s been better at this shit than anyone I’ve seen. He did screw up in Prague. If you can call saving twelve innocent girls a screwup. But he managed to divert attention from it. It’s very, very shaky, but nobody knows who it was.”
Palmer came back, now agitated. “Bullshit! So he saved twelve girls. Who the fuck cares? How many girls are there in the world getting screwed over right now? His mission is to defend the United States. Not run around saving whatever he thinks is right. Jesus, your guys go through enormous training for this very thing. Don’t get involved in the source’s life. Get what you can out of them. Don’t get attached. Pike got attached in about fifteen minutes.”
Kurt cut in. “Wait a minute. It was more than that. He found out a source inside the house had information on the Arab’s next moves. That’s why he did it. If he hadn’t assaulted, we wouldn’t be debating the next step. There wouldn’t be a next step.”
Warren raised his hand. “Okay, I got it. What’s the status of the hit?”
Brookings spoke up. “Well, we were lucky in the regional security officer. He’s a career guy who actually cares more about America than his job. Pike left the girls in a van outside the embassy, then called the RSO anonymously to let him know what he had, to include the house Pike had hit. Basically, he hand-fed the Prague police a political coup. They got to take down some bad guys that were already subdued by Pike’s crew, then crow about breaking up a white-slavery ring. It’s a win-win as far as anybody knows. The RSO also followed Pike’s instructions about keeping it close-hold, even from the ambassador. My report from the Prague mission was exactly the cover story Pike devised. The Czech police raided the house, arrests in abundance, prosecutions forthcoming, yada yada yada. The ambassador has no idea what occurred, and neither do the Czech police. And they won’t look too hard, given the penetration the Albanians had in their department. They’ll pat themselves on the back and let it go.”
“So we’re at square one with this? No harm, no foul?”
Palmer spoke up. “Yes, in theory, but we still have Pike at the helm. This worked out. But it might not have. We need to look at the repercussions holistically. Pike saved twelve teenage girls, and that’s great, but in so doing, he put this entire effort in jeopardy. I’m against letting him go to Budapest. We’re on the verge of compromising the entire effort. It’ll be too easy to connect the dots if we give him authority for Budapest.”
Palmer quit talking but looked like he had something else to say. Warren waited a beat, then said, “Get it out. This isn’t a time to go back home wishing you’d said something.”
Kurt watched Palmer look his way, and knew it would be bad.
“Well, if we decide to do this, we need to face the repercussions. If it blows up, we’ll be crucified—and I’m not talking about our careers. That’s a given. We might stop this attack, but we won’t stop the next one. Or the one after. In fact, if this operation gets out, we might very well be driving the next attack. Taskforce operations will fuel conspiracy theories for decades. We have enough trouble trying to fight bullshit propaganda on the Arab street with normal operations. It isn’t pleasant, but morality is on a scale. Nobody would say saving those girls was wrong, but Pike’s operation might have cost us many more deaths, because we need to protect the Taskforce. We might need to let this attack occur so that we can prevent the next one.”
Nobody said anything, the truth of the statement speaking for itself. Kurt wondered how it had come to this. How everything he had done to prevent just this problem had proven insufficient.
“Either that,” Palmer continued, “or prepare a story ahead of time if things go bad. Mitigate the damage to the greatest extent possible.”
Whoa. What’s that mean? Kurt knew that any story would have to be backed up with sacrificial lambs. He’d seen it firsthand last year when they’d thrown some bad folks to the wolves to protect the Taskforce.
Warren addressed the secretary of defense. “What do you think?”
“Sir, I think we let them go. We know two things: There’s an attack coming, and the method of the attack involves explosives gleaned in Budapest. Without the explosives, the EFPs fail. We don’t know where the attack is going to occur, but we can affect the acquisition of explosives. Pike’s methods have proven risky and unpredictable, but in the end, he’s all
we have. I say let them continue.” He paused for a minute, then said, “And I mean for the record, as the secretary of defense, I say let them continue.”
Brookings and Palmer began to talk over each other at his statement, causing the secretary of defense to raise his hand. When the room was quiet, he said, “Please. Let me continue. We can’t predict the future. We might all be in jail in six months, and our entire counterterrorist infrastructure could be gutted. But we don’t know that. What we do know is that the attack’s coming. We don’t know the form or the time, but we know it’s imminent. We have the ability to stop it. Right now.”
He went face-to-face around the room. “I say stop the attack. If it goes bad, it goes bad, but there’s no way I can sit here and say let it go so we can prevent the next one.”
The silence extended from the SECDEFs statement, nobody willing to offer another opinion. Kurt watched Warren consider all that was said, glad that he wasn’t in the president’s shoes. Warren tapped his fingers on the table for a couple of seconds, then looked up.
“Okay. Everyone understand that this is my decision. For the record, you all disagreed vehemently. And I mean that.” He looked at Kurt. “No more Taskforce activity without council oversight. Interdict the explosives and nothing more. That’s the mission. I don’t give a shit what they find out, that’s all they do.”
Stone-faced, Kurt said, “Yes, sir.”
Warren’s expression softened. “Kurt, I know this sounds like I’m looking for a reason to hang them out to dry, but that won’t happen. I trust you. I trust them. Get them back in the fight.”
Warren looked at the pad of paper on the desk, clenching his fists around the pencil in his hands. The pencil snapped under his grasp, surprising the room at the loss of control.