“Negative,” Owen said. Walland and Massi echoed the single word. Then Owen said, “Did anyone see where the shot came from?”
Again, they all replied in the negative.
“That’s a Pave Low,” Walland suddenly said. “You hear it?”
Kealey listened hard, and sure enough, there was the sound he’d been waiting for: the steady, distant thump of approaching helicopters. His relief was short-lived, as Owen came back on a moment later, ready to point out the overlying problem.
“Kealey, we’ve got to get up there,” he pressed. “They might not come down on the first pass, and if they circle, it gives Mengal a chance to run.”
“They could come down on the first try,” Walland pointed out quickly, his voice laced with tension. “That house is lit up like a Christmas tree. Even without infrared on the ground, they should be able to spot their landing zones.”
“Maybe,” Owen allowed, “but we can’t afford to sit here and wait.”
Kealey thought about that for a few seconds, then made his decision. “I’m going after them. Walland, watch for the two guards in the grass. Did you see where they dropped down?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think—”
“If they stand up, take them out. Owen, you watch the ground to the left of the barn. Massi, you’ve got the other side of the house.”
“Kealey, you can’t—”
“Just listen,” Kealey snapped, cutting Massi off in midsentence.
“When I move, watch for a muzzle flash. It’ll probably come from the top of the hill, and when you see it, pull the trigger. Don’t fuck around . . . It doesn’t have to be a perfect shot. Just squeeze the trigger, and keep firing until you run out of ammo, okay? I want suppressive fire, not a single round in the ten ring.”
“This is a bad idea,” Walland said. “If there is a sniper up there, you won’t get more than a few feet. You know you can’t—”
“Let me worry about that. Just watch for the—”
Kealey stopped talking when he heard the distant but unmistakable sound of an engine turning over. It was hard to tell with the rain and the rumble of tanks in the hills to the rear, as well as the sound of the incoming helicopters, but he was almost certain the sound was coming from the other side of the house. His muscles tightened involuntarily, and he swore viciously over his lip mic when he realized what was happening. “They’re running . . . We’ve got to go now.”
“Wait,” Walland said urgently, “Kealey, you—”
Kealey didn’t hear the rest; he was already moving. His right foot was already wedged against the same rock he’d used earlier. Launching himself up and forward, he began running hard for the edge of the field, eyes flickering over the wet, waist-high grass in front of him. He hadn’t taken more than a few steps when he felt the air flutter over his right shoulder. The strange sensation was immediately followed by the crack of a high-powered rifle. Massi said something like, “I see him, I see him,” and then Kealey felt the same sensation of another near miss, and Owen screamed, “Got another one. There’s a sniper on the left as well. . . .”
Kealey dodged to the right, ran hard for two or three seconds, then dodged back to the left, trying to make himself a harder target. His heart was thumping against his ribs, and he couldn’t breathe. He felt sure that death was imminent, just seconds away. He heard the rattle of automatic fire, then the crack of a bolt-action rifle, but the sounds seemed distant somehow, as if by running, he had removed himself from the ongoing battle, even though he was sprinting toward the enemy. It was a stupid thought, he realized; if one or both of the snipers had him in their sights, they wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, and they were probably tracking him right now. . . .
“Got him,” Massi shouted over the earpiece. “I got one. . . .”
Owen: “Can’t see him . . . The fucker is down in the grass. . . .”
Walland said urgently, “Your left, Kealey. Watch your left. . . .” Still running hard, Kealey started to bring the rifle to his shoulder, but Walland was faster. Kealey heard a 3-round burst to his rear and got the scope to his eye in time to see a man dropping into the grass, the green-tinted image bouncing crazily against his face. Swinging the rifle back to the right, he saw a second figure rising up, a dark silhouette against the lights in Qureshi’s back garden. Kealey squeezed the trigger without looking through the scope just as the guard depressed the trigger on his AK-47. The man screamed and fell back, firing a half-dozen rounds in the process, but Kealey didn’t break stride.
He reached the garden a few seconds later and ran at a dead sprint up the hill. When he got to the top, lungs burning, he ran between the barn and the house in time to see a black van moving down the rutted path, the tires struggling to gain traction on the flooded dirt road. Suddenly, the vehicle swerved onto the highest point on the road, the tires caught, and the van lurched forward. He did a quick range calculation and placed the rapidly accelerating vehicle at a distance of 75 meters.
“They’re running,” Kealey shouted into his lip mic. “They’re running. . . .”
Lifting the rifle to his shoulder, he aimed for the tires and started to fire, the collapsible stock thumping steadily against his shoulder. He saw the rear tire go on the passenger side. The van swerved sharply, went off the road, and hit a depression in the grass. The vehicle flipped onto its side with a wet thud, the sound of crunching glass dampened by the overgrown grass in the field. Kealey was tempted to fire again—he had a clear view of the passenger-side door, which was facing up to the sky—but he didn’t know where Fitzgerald was in the vehicle, and he could risk hitting her with an errant round. As he moved slowly to the left, his rifle up at his shoulder, his earpiece came to life.
“Kealey, what’s happening?” Walland demanded. “Where are they?”
“They are in a van,” he shouted. “But I knocked out the tires. Get up—”
Kealey dove to the ground as soon as he saw the flash, but he wasn’t fast enough. He never finished the rest of the sentence. He felt an impact in his left side, but he couldn’t look: he was too busy rolling right to avoid the rounds kicking up the ground around him.Where the hell was it coming from? The question was right there, like someone was shouting it repeatedly inside his head, but then he figured it out, and it all came back in a flash of memory. The back of the van had popped open at the same time he had been distracted by Walland’s radio call, and at least one person had tumbled out of the cargo area. Or had it been two . . . ? And if so, which two had it been? Kealey was still trying to decide when something large and dark swept over the house, accompanied by the unmistakable roar of twin General Electric T700 turboshafts operating at full capacity. Still lying prone, he tilted his head up to the dark, rainy sky and watched as the big helicopter came in to land. The Pave Low dropped with surprising speed toward the large, open field in front of the house, but before it could touch down, Kealey was back on his feet, his attention riveted on the scene unfolding before him. For the moment, he was lost to the sound of the Apaches providing cover overhead, the guttural roar of the Pave Low landing 200 feet to his left, the radio traffic coming over his earpiece, and the stinging pain in his side. He was entirely focused on the struggling pair 50 yards in front of him. The rifle came up of its own accord, but before he could fire, his target spotted him, and with one swift move, he had his hostage wrapped up in his left arm. In his right, he was holding a gun, and he had it against Brynn Fitzgerald’s head before Kealey could squeeze off a shot he was comfortable with. The captor—along with his hostage—was less than 10 feet from the open rear doors of the disabled van.
“Don’t shoot!” Amari Saifi screamed over the roar of the helicopter. His attention was clearly torn between the helicopter and the lone soldier in front of him, but he knew enough to keep his body mass behind that of his hostage. “If you fire, she dies! Do you hear me? She dies! ”
He continued to scream random orders and threats, but Kealey didn’t hear a single word. In his per
ipheral vision, he could see Delta troopers streaming out of the gaping hole in the side of the MH-53, but for the moment, he didn’t care what they were doing, even though he knew that a good number of them undoubtedly had their weapons trained on his head.
“Drop your gun!” The Algerian shouted again. Kealey didn’t respond, and he didn’t move. He was still waiting for his opportunity. Gunfire erupted to the rear of the house, and the soldiers were screaming something at Saifi—at both of them, Kealey realized—but still, he refused to shift his aim. Through the AN/PVS-17 scope mounted to his rifle, he had a quarter moon of a target. . . . And that wasn’t enough. The thought hit him on a subliminal level; the decision to hold his fire was not a conscious one. It didn’t occur to him that he had been in a similar position twice before, and that it had ended badly both times. He didn’t think about the possibility that he might miss, and he didn’t consider the full extent of what would happen if his round hit the hostage instead of the target. The target was all he could see; for Ryan Kealey, Amari Saifi’s head was just a sliver behind the pale, frightened face of Brynn Fitzgerald. In his mind, she was no longer the acting secretary of state, the most powerful woman in Washington. She wasn’t even an innocent bystander. She was simply something in the way of his target. At that moment, one of the Delta troopers fired. Kealey didn’t see where the round went, but he caught the flash from the corner of his left eye, and it had the desired effect. Saifi, distracted by the muzzle flash, turned his head a few inches to the right, and Fitzgerald jerked away from the gun, giving Kealey the fraction of a second he needed to act.
He squeezed the trigger once, which was all he had time for. The bullet hit Saifi just forward of his left ear and went straight through the intracranial space, removing the top right quarter of his skull as it exited on the other side. A fist-sized mass of bone, tissue, and blood spun out into the wet, waist-high grass, and Saifi dropped like a stone to the waterlogged soil, his body disappearing into the grass. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Fitzgerald was already moving; Kealey watched as she staggered away, her hands fluttering in front of her face, which was covered with the remains of her captor. The thing she was doing with her hands was strange, he thought. It was a fleeting notion, but nevertheless, the sight left an indelible impression. It was almost as if she were trying to direct traffic for the first time. He saw her mouth, which had formed a perfect oval of surprise and suspended disbelief, and the wide, uncomprehending look in her eyes. Even in the dark, he could see the blood spattered over the right side of her face. . . .
As he watched her, some innate instinct told him to drop his weapon—that the soldiers moving in from the left would not be able to tell him from their enemies. He wondered why they had held their fire this long, then realized that some of them might have recognized him, even through the low light of their NVGs. He had worked extensively with the 1st SFOD-D, and it was a small, tight-knit community; the possibility that a few of them had picked him out was not as far-fetched as one might believe.
Still, it would be better to lose the weapon. His body reacted instantly, and his hands sprung open. The rifle fell to the ground, but instead of falling to his knees and raising his hands, he found himself stumbling forward. The pain in his side was still just a dull ache, but he could feel a spreading warmth on his front and back. Ignoring it, he kept moving toward the van, one hand pressed over the small hole in his torso. He still had to find Mengal; the former general was the only one left who knew where the rest of the hostages were, and Kealey hadn’t seen him get out of the van. It didn’t occur to him that he had just dropped his only real means of defending himself. All he could see was the van, and that was his target. Suddenly, he was hit hard from the left, and he felt his legs being kicked out from under him. As focused as he was on the incapacitated vehicle, he had been blind and deaf to the soldier’s rapid, nearsilent approach. He felt a foot land on his upper back, holding him down, and though he couldn’t see it, he knew the muzzle of a highpowered rifle was aimed directly at his head.
“I’ve got him,” a voice called out. Then, to Kealey: “Who are you? Identify yourself.”
Maybe they didn’t recognize me, he thought, and then it hit him; they were under orders to take Mengal and Saifi alive, and they might have mistaken him for one of the two men. “I’m with the Agency,” he managed. It was hard to speak; the foot wedged between his shoulder blades was preventing him from getting the air he needed.
“There are four other guys behind the house. Listen, you—”
“How do I know that? How do I know you’re not with them?”
A fair question, Kealey thought. Thinking quickly, he reeled off the Pentagon’s code name for the operation and a few other salient points that had come straight from the White House. It took about twenty seconds to convince the soldier standing over him that he was who he said he was. At that point, the man reached down and helped him to his feet.
“You’re hit,” he said, once Kealey had turned to face him. The CIA operative glanced down at the hole in his left side, but he waved it away.
“It’s nothing.” Which wasn’t strictly true, but he couldn’t address it just yet; there were still things to be done. First, he checked in with Owen, who told him that the rest of the team was already aboard the MH-53 to the rear of the house. Caught up in his attempt to stop Mengal from escaping, Kealey had forgotten about the second helicopter. “What about Manik?” he asked his former CO.
“He’s dead,” Owen said grimly. “So is the hostage.”
Shit. Kealey supposed he had already known, but now he had confirmation, and nothing made it hit home like hearing the words. Owen started to say something else, but Kealey had already turned his attention to the scene unfolding before him. Four Delta troopers had reached Fitzgerald and were escorting her back to the Pave Lowin front of the house. Escorting wasn’t exactly the right word, Kealey thought absently, as the four men were practically carrying her at a dead sprint back to the waiting helicopter. At the same time, a series of dark shapes were moving toward the incapacitated van, weapons at the ready. Kealey couldn’t see them, but he knew there were other soldiers lying prone between the MH-53 and the house, covering the secretary’s evacuation.
The trooper who’d pushed him to the ground was standing a few feet away, murmuring calm, authoritative orders into his lip mic. Kealey suddenly realized that this man was probably leading one of the elements. He was about to ask a question, but it was gone before he could get it out. In fact, he couldn’t seem to fix on any one thought; it was as if his mind was bleeding out, just like his . . . Kealey glanced down at the gunshot wound on the left side of his abdomen. It didn’t look too bad—just a neat hole surrounded by a large circle of blood—but then he reached around and realized why his vision was starting to blur. The hole in his back was significantly larger than the one in front. The exit wound, he realized, with a sense of sudden fear, had to be at least 6 centimeters in diameter. He briefly wondered how the soldier standing next to him could have missed it; after all, he’d been looking right down at his back a scant forty seconds before. But then he realized that the blood would have been hard to spot on his dark clothing, especially since it was still dark and raining. He had not felt the pain when the man’s foot had been wedged into his upper back. The adrenaline had been pumping too hard for that, but he was definitely feeling it now. The dizzying waves of pain were radiating throughout his abdomen, and they were only getting worse. . . .
As he brought his hand away from the wound, he saw it was dripping with blood. Glancing in his direction, the soldier—who was still on the radio—did a double take and started to turn in Kealey’s direction, his eyes opening wide. He had seen it, too, Kealey realized. It was his last conscious thought. The Delta trooper lunged out to stop him from falling, but Kealey’s legs were already going. The night sky started to fade, replaced by something much deeper and darker, and then the world was gone completely.
He was
unconscious before he even hit the ground. He never heard the master sergeant’s urgent call for a medic, and he didn’t see the look of utter despair that crossed the young staff sergeant’s face when he arrived on the run twenty seconds later. The medic had seen this kind of wound before, and he knew the odds. Still, he had to try, and he set to work, frantically pulling items out of his rucksack, wondering if he had even the smallest chance of saving this man’s life.
CHAPTER 45
WASHINGTON, D.C.
It was just after one in the afternoon when Jonathan Harper was shown into the Oval Office by the president’s secretary. It was the first time he’d ever been alone in the room, and he knew that Brenneman probably wouldn’t arrive for another ten minutes. The president was just a few hundred feet away, speaking to the dozens of White House correspondents camped out on the South Lawn. It was a good day for it, Harper had to admit, and in more ways than one. At least, that was the predominant feeling in Washington on this warm Tuesday afternoon. Through the towering colonnade windows positioned behind the president’s desk, Harper could see the sunlight streaming through the trees and the brilliant blue backdrop beyond. But try as he might, he could not appreciate the picturesque view. The previous day’s operation had been labeled a success, in spite of the many mistakes that had marked its execution. Even Harper had to admit that when viewed objectively, it looked like a win on every front. Brynn Fitzgerald had been recovered intact, Amari Saifi
was dead, and Benazir Mengal was in custody. The former Pakistani general had already revealed where the remainder of the hostages were being held—a secluded village in the Karakoram range—and a second rescue operation was already in the works. Best of all, it had all been accomplished with minimal loss of life. But that, Harper thought soberly, was the objective version, and when one looked at the value of the lives that had been lost, the mission didn’t seem like such a great success. However, he had to admit the truth: for the president—and for the general public at large—success rested with the recovery of the secretary of state, and that had been accomplished. When the assault force had returned to Bagram, they had found the State Department’s customized 757 standing by, along with a full medical team and eight newly appointed members of the secretary of state’s protective detail. From there, Brynn Fitzgerald had been transported to the military hospital at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where she was currently being treated in a closed, secure wing of the building. For the most part, she was still in one piece, though doctors had discovered evidence of recent injuries, at least two of which were potentially fatal in nature. At least, they would have been fatal had they been left untreated. Those particular injuries—a partial pneumothorax of the left lung and a mild to moderate hemopericardium—had been adequately attended to by Said Qureshi in Pakistan. The doctors at Ramstein had grudgingly admitted as much, but the surgeon’s efforts had not been enough to satisfy them, and they had made it their personal mission to find the things that Qureshi had missed.
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