by RD Gupta
“Seriously, now is not the time for jokes,” Jarrod said with a hint of disbelief.
“Joking? I’m serious. Based on our position, if you roll the grenade, they may not see it coming until it is too late. You’ll have a few rolls before they catch on to our location. Make them count.”
“This is f-ing nuts,” Jarrod said before he paused to take a look around to weigh the alternatives. He didn’t see any good ones. “I guess it’s better than waiting around to get our heads blown off,” he concluded.
Jarrod took a quick peek around the rock to assess the situation. The three goons were still in defensive positions, firing randomly from time to time in their general direction. It was fairly clear they weren’t aware of Jarrod and Sarah’s exact positions due to the misty fog that was thickening around them.
Jarrod took a deep breath, then emerged partially from behind the huge rock. He took a moment to consider where he wanted the grenade to land and flung the grenade a few feet off the ground toward the SUV. Channeling his college intramural days, it hit about twenty yards from the SUV and was rolling right on track. Then it hit another rock and careened a dozen yards off course, to Jarrod’s dismay. “God damn these rocks,” Jarrod muttered. The grenade rolled right in the line of sight of the commandos on the porch. One came forward and quickly scanned the terrain to try to ascertain Jarrod’s location. At that very moment, the sun temporarily broke through the clouds and shone down, glistening off Jarrod’s watch and illuminating his position. Jarrod quickly retracted his wrist, but the commando pointed his weapon right at Jarrod’s location and fired off a few rounds. The sound of bullets hitting the ground and kicking up dust next to him made Jarrod move a little faster in taking cover.
Stupid Rolex! Jarrod thought.
He heard the commandos yell something inside to Basayev, most probably to take cover. The grenade went off with a loud bang, scattering rocks and dirt for a dozen yards. Unfortunately, it didn’t do any damage whatsoever to the Land Rover, and to top it off, Jarrod had now telegraphed his location.
“Uh, Sarah, I think they are on to us.”
Sarah nodded, “I would tend to agree. And we’ve got more friends joining the party.”
She turned and pointed to another caravan of SUVs was ascending the mountain, kicking up a lot of dust and debris in the process. “About five minutes and we are going to be in a full on shitstorm.”
“I know, I know. Sarah, you are going to have to hold off this other caravan. I’ll try and make this one count.”
“Roger that. I’ll be back soon. Don’t screw up, ” Sarah quickly replied as she disappeared into the woods toward the switchback road to head off the oncoming SUVs.
As Jarrod was formulating his strategy for the next grenade roll, one of the commandos spontaneously made a beeline to the armored Land Rover. “Shit, they are going for the detonator!” Jarrod muttered. The scruffy-bearded commando quickly approached the grenade-damaged and bullet-ridden SUV and swung open the passenger door. He dove inside for temporary cover. Jarrod panicked. He took the grenade and flung it around the side of the rock he was hiding behind, hoping for a miracle roll. He peered around the rock as he crouched down to see if his Hail Mary actually would result in a touchdown. The grenade rolled like a runaway snowball down a mountain towards the SUV, and then Jarrod watched stunned at what he saw next.
One of the other commandos that was on the porch yelled out in what sounded like Farsi and then ran straight toward the grenade at full speed like he was trying to medal in the Olympics. What the hell is he doing? Jarrod thought as he watched the scene unfold. A few feet from the front of the SUV, near the hood, the commando went airborne and landed directly on the grenade, smothering it near his torso. What seemed like minutes went by as he lay there on the grenade, facedown. In reality, it was no more than two seconds. He was in the midst of yelling out in glorious victory before he was cut short, both literally and figuratively. The force of the grenade ripped through the commando with such force that the front of the armored Land Rover looked like it hit a deer at full speed.
“Are you kidding me?” Jarrod shrieked with genuine disbelief. The good news, if there was any, was that there were only two commandos left, plus Basayev. The bad news, however, was Jarrod now only had one grenade left. This was it; do or die. Or perhaps do and die?
Jarrod emerged from behind the rock to get a momentary clear line of sight. This was his last chance to destroy the detonator. Small puffs of dirt and debris accompanied the sound of bullets hitting the ground all around him, but Jarrod ignored them. Jarrod focused on the bottom of the Rover and flung the last grenade low against the barren ground as he continued to laterally move in a half-crouched position. The grenade rolled in slow motion over about twenty-five yards of rough terrain and then started to slow down about five meters from the target as it hit a dead patch of grass.
“Go, go, go!” Jarrod egged on the grenade like it was golf ball heading towards the hole on the 18th green. The remaining commandos started firing at the grenade, trying desperately to prevent it from reaching the Land Rover. While the terrorists were distracted, Jarrod squatted on the ground and took the opportunity to fire a few rounds. One hit its mark and landed in the chest of a commando on the porch. The commando clutched the wound and took a few steps toward Basayev, then grabbed his arm asking for help as blood dripped onto Basayev’s boots. Basayev took a second to look at the wound as he supported the commando’s slumping body. Basayev then calmly raised his weapon and coldly shot the commando in the head and point blank range, his body immediately crumpling onto the weathered wood below.
The commando still taking refuge in the Rover had finally emerged with a small box or contraption in his hands. Jarrod fired quickly and missed as the commando reached Basayev, stepping over the dead body of his comrade to hand Basayev the box. At the same time, the rolling grenade disappeared under the front of the SUV.
Basayev stood in the doorway of the cabin and yelled something unintelligible before staring directly at Jarrod. Even though they were dozens of yards away, Jarrod could feel the cold eye contact of the terrorist which paralyzed him for a split second. That split second would cost Jarrod dearly, as Basayev was able to fire off a few rounds in his direction. Jarrod felt a sharp searing pain in his left shoulder as his whole body was jerked backwards involuntarily. He lost his balance as he hit the ground, blood already seeping through his gray-brown outer vest. Jarrod wasn’t sure what happened, but his fear was confirmed as he pressed his hand against the pain and found his fingers bathed in red. Jarrod had gone through quite a number of things in his life, but getting shot wasn’t one of them.
Jesus, I am going to die out here! Jarrod thought. The pain in his shoulder was so intense, he couldn’t think about anything else. He tried to drown out the discomfort, his eyes uncontrollably watering up in response to the trauma. A spray of bullets pushed him back toward cover as he crawled on his stomach using the strength from his other arm.
Jarrod watched as Basayev pulled out the detonator. Everything went dead silent as Basayev again locked his eyes with Jarrod, a look of triumph over the American infidel who lay helpless on the dirt in a pool of his own filthy blood.
Basayev clicked on the detonator and a huge reverberating explosion erupted all around Jarrod, causing him to shield his eyes. He could hear explosions off in the distance as he slowly crawled back behind the boulder for cover. Resigning himself to defeat, Jarrod slumped to the ground, the loss of blood taking its toll on his strength. His vision became blurred as he slipped out of consciousness. I failed, He thought as he passed out.
*
Jarrod opened his eyes to see a shadow. It felt like days later, but in reality, it was only a few minutes.
“Jarrod, Jarrod, are you OK?” Sarah was kneeling next to him.
Jarrod struggled to compose himself. “Sarah, I failed. They blew up the pipeline. Basayev, he, he triggered the detonator; they are going to find us. They are going to kill
us.”
“Jarrod, you’ve been shot.”
She immediately applied pressure on the wound. “It looks like it exited clean. You need to stay with me. Don’t lose focus, OK?”
“If I don’t get to say this later, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Jarrod grasped Sarah’s hand as he spoke.
“Jarrod, you are going to be OK. You did it. You killed Basayev. The grenade must have gone off milliseconds before he tried to detonate.”
“I don’t understand, I heard the pipeline explosions in the distance. I don’t understand.”
“What you heard was the convoy going up in smoke. Thank god that one of the trucks was a munitions vehicle with a cache of weapons, I was able to get a grenade in the hold and take a few of them out. About that same time I heard a huge explosion where I left you and I came back to help. We’ll let the lab confirm, but based on what I saw down there, I am pretty sure you killed Basayev. That grenade must’ve gone off right under the gas tank to cause the explosion. Jarrod, you are a hero. But unfortunately we probably have 10 minutes until the rest of the convoy finds us.”
The adrenaline kicked in for Jarrod as he tried to crack a smile. “Now that we got the bastard, can we please get the hell out of here?”
With that, Sarah frantically radioed her Turkish counterparts for support. She applied pressure at the wound with a wad of gauze bandage she pulled out of her survival kit and then she proceeded to securely wrap it around Jarrod as he continued to wince in pain. She stood up and glanced at her watch before quickly surveying the area. She took pictures and swiftly picked up evidence strewn about site before coming back to tend to Jarrod.
Jarrod mustered the strength to take a look at his watch. There was little more than 24 hours until options expiration. He closed his eyes, slipping out of consciousness again, managing to feel both overcome with relief and stricken with panic that he still may not have enough time to save the firm.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
18 Hours until Options Expiration
The next time Jarrod awoke, he was connected to an IV and strapped in a mobile stretcher in a dimly lit concrete room. The pain in his shoulder confirmed the last few hours weren’t a crazy dream. He quickly did a once-over of the interior to make sure he was not in enemy territory when Sarah walked in.
“How are you feeling?”
“It depends. How long has it been? Can you turn on CNBC?”
“Jarrod, don’t worry. It has only been a few hours but oil prices are down more than 10 percent on the news and US markets open shortly. Somehow the news broke on Twitter from an anonymous source that Turkish security forces had killed Basayev.”
“Thank your anonymous source for me,” Jarrod replied with a grin. “Why didn’t Basayev just blow up the pipeline? He had the detonator in his hand.”
“I wondered that myself, and then I remembered you were babbling in the helicopter while you were in shock…something about Basayev ranting about pills.”
“Yeah,” Jarrod recalled. He was yelling about pills or something to his goons.
“Well, pil is battery in Turkish.”
Sarah opened her hands to reveal a box of charred double AA batteries. “I recovered these near his body. He had the detonator, but somehow batteries must have been in the armored SUV. Ironic this the reason the commandos were going berserk. I guess sometimes you have to be good…”
“And sometimes you have to be lucky,” Jarrod chimed in. Jarrod took the batteries in his hand for a minute. “Wow, we were $2.50 from a colossal failure?”
“And now you are what, 2.5 billion in the black? Not a bad day’s work, eh?”
Jarrod smiled, and then remembered some loose ends. “What about Eli Manon? Was he a double spy? Israeli agents never turn. That makes no sense.”
“Yes, the Agency is on high alert over that. We don’t have any answers on that yet. Also, shortly after we left Koksol, he was taken out near Ankara. We didn’t even have time to warn him about Eli going rogue.”
Jarrod sat up slightly. “So what now? I suspect the CIA wants to have a few words with us.”
“Already done. I debriefed the director on what happened”
“And they aren’t hauling me to a military prison?”
Sarah responded in stride with a wink. “Of course not, Jarrod. Remember what happened? I enlisted you to help me take out Basayev on authority of the Central Intelligence Agency. Remember, I needed someone outside the force to ensure we weren’t exposed in enemy territory. Remember?”
“Uh, yes, of course I remember,” Jarrod replied slyly.
“The director was not happy at first, but the results overshadowed any corners I might have cut. In fact, the door may be open for you to rejoin our ranks in the future.”
“Sarah, I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Get some rest. Our flight back to New York leaves in four hours. You will have an official debrief there.”
Anyway, I should be thanking you.”
“Why?” Jarrod responded, genuinely perplexed.
Her green eyes lost a little of their mirth and softened. “Because my father would have been proud of what you did to save the firm.”
Jarrod realized he had never told Sarah about her father, William. She must have gotten the news.
“Sarah, I can’t imagine what you are going through. I’m sorry.”
Sarah held his hand gently, making sure to not jostle his injured shoulder.
“For once, at least I don’t have to go through it alone.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Manhattan, New York
A Few Hours until Options Expiration
His arm in a sling, Jarrod walked into the office as if it were any other day (albeit a few hours late, he needed the extra sleep). No casual Friday jeans today. Jarrod was in his typical pinstripe Hugo suit. Well, the sling was a little out of place, but Sergei had let the office know of Jarrod’s unfortunate “motorcycle accident” that caused the injury. Sergei had briefed Jarrod before he arrived on all the office news while he was out, as well as the trading forecast for the day. His return felt quite bittersweet. Being named President seemed like a goal that Jarrod had always dreamed of, but in the wake of William’s passing, he was reassessing whether this is what he really wanted.
Oil prices had just experienced the largest one-day drop in the last twenty-five years. They agreed to close the position first thing when the market opened to book the gains. They had taken enough risks and had no need to gamble for a few million more. The trade was tracking toward about 2.5 billion in profit if prices held steady. Amazingly, Jarrod’s whereabouts for the last two weeks continued to be mystery to everyone in the firm except for a choice few, but the stellar performance of his high-stakes trade was already front-page news throughout the firm and was making its way around Wall Street.
But victory was tempered. As he walked down the long corridor toward his office, he regretted that he never got to say good-bye to William. He was already getting calls from Bloomberg and CNBC and had a dozen voice-mails from the lesser-known reporters to get a statement on his newly appointed position.
On his way to his office, he was intercepted by a mob of Blackenford back office employees who were there only to shamelessly kiss up to the new boss, including Pippin, who approached like a dog with his tail squarely between his legs. One complimented his cufflinks. One complimented his shoes. One complimented his arm sling… twice. He cordially stopped for a few seconds but continued on his path to his office.
“Wow, am I going to have to deal with this sucking up every day?” he muttered to himself as he picked up the pace to minimize any further interruptions As he walked into his office, he shut the door behind him and took a deep breath. Despite all he had been through, including a bullet going through him, all he could think about was Sarah. After what he experienced, the money now seemed pointless. As his mind wandered, he was quickly snapped back to reality.
“Boss?” Jarrod looked
up to see the back of his office chair with huge clouds of smoke rising toward the ceiling, mafia-style. As the chair swung around, he could see his right-hand man, Sergei, with a huge smile on his face. “You did good boss, I’m glad you die did not. A little bit worried I was, you know?”
Jarrod, looked at his watch, it was 11:32 am. “Sergei, I’m happy to be back. Let’s close this trade.”
“Already done, boss, exactly at 11:30, I closed. We made 2.6 billion. You are like the superman.”
“Wait, 2.6? I thought it was 2.5. How did you squeeze out an extra 100 million?”
“Boss, remember I have algorithms. It gave me insight on how to maximize the trade.”
Jarrod felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. At the same time, he still had a number of questions about everything that had happened. Something still felt out of place.
Sergei, tapped his head indicating he had forgotten something. “Boss, I also executed the 200 million long options trade you asked for but I’m not sure I understand your rationale. I don’t think oil will go up anytime soon”
“$200 million??? I didn’t ask you to do that?”
“Da Boss, maybe you forget, you sent to me this morning, see?” Sergei held up his phone and showed a text message from Jarrod that read as follows:
Price Reversal coming, put $200 million long this morning. Thx, JS.
Jarrod took the phone from Sergei to take a closer look.
“I never sign as ‘JS’, also, this came from a number assigned to my VOIP phone at the trading desk, not my cell. That line is on the same data network as Icarus. You don’t think? There is no way...Is there?”
“Boss, I don’t know. Kind of scary if Icarus is trying to impersonate. Should I cancel the trade?”
“No, but do some digging, Icarus was right the last time, although it cost me a bullet to the shoulder. Also, lets talk to the founder of the startup that made Icarus. He has some explaining to do.”