Ambush

by Barbara Nickless

  If I were casting for a movie, Osborne would make a great Alpha. Handsome, confident. A good dresser with precisely the right arrogance in his square jaw.

  “So we got one candidate for the Alpha,” Sarge said.

  “Maybe more if we can learn anything about Valor.”

  A headache had been pirouetting on the corners of my brain; now it waltzed into the middle of the dance floor. I rifled through Paul’s desk until I found a bottle of ibuprofen, and dry-swallowed four caplets. I pushed the photos toward Sarge.

  “Kane’s,” I said. “He had them in with the brochures.”

  Sarge went through each photograph, then gave a low whistle.

  “They mean something to you?” I asked.

  “Not the ones of the buildings. Fucking piles of rocks in the middle of nowhere. But the strip club.” He looked up. His eyes carried a lot of steel. “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “When I was on the inside of the Alpha’s organization, or at least, as far as I ever got on the inside, I heard that he had a boarded-up club somewhere here in Denver. I wasn’t in the circle who knew where it was. I just heard the talk.”

  “Why would he have an old strip joint?”

  “For hiding things. Weapons. The occasional asset. Scuttlebutt was they also use it for doing things they don’t want anyone to know about. Like when they need to break someone who can’t be bribed or threatened. Men like your friend in Mexico.”

  “They kill people there?”

  “What I heard. The Alpha runs a mean business. But I guess you learned that the hard way.”

  “And you worked for him.”

  “You don’t shit gold bricks, either, princess. I didn’t believe the rumors until after they sent me to nail you. Everything changed after that.”

  We both looked at the picture of James Osborne. Sarge gave him a sardonic salute with his beer.

  “What ugly fucking freak show,” Sarge said, “did our man Kane walk into?”

  CHAPTER 17

  The past leaps out without warning and grips you by the throat.

  Forget trying to stay on your feet. You can’t even breathe.

  —Sydney Parnell. Personal Journal.

  Clyde and I walked Sarge out to his pickup. Sarge pressed his key fob, and the truck flashed its lights.

  “I’ll call as soon as I know something,” he said.

  “Likewise.”

  We’d formulated a plan. For the time being, I would keep digging, see what I could learn about Vigilant Resources and James Osborne. I’d try again with Valor Industries, too, see if there was anything floating around on the Dark Web.

  Sarge, meanwhile, would drop in on a friend who was still in the business. This friend, Hutch “the Handler” Voss, was closer to the inner circle of the Alpha’s organization than Sarge had been. But the two of them were tight. Hutch might, with half a bottle of Jameson’s inside him, be willing to cough up information about the Alpha. We figured every little bit would help.

  I’d stayed quiet about the key in Dougie’s compass. Sarge might have a few guesses what box that key would open. But I wasn’t ready to cross that line with him. Not yet. He had to prove himself.

  Sarge opened the truck door, then turned to me.

  “I appreciate the trust,” he said.

  “Why don’t you explain it to me, Udell. What you did last winter. And why you never came back to finish the job.”

  He frowned. He looked bad in the fading light. Whatever he’d done to someone to cause the blood in his apartment, he’d taken a few licks of his own. One eye swollen shut, his lower lip split. A bandage over his left cheek. We were a pair, I supposed, with our injuries and our anger. But while we stared at each other, something softened in his face. After a moment he closed the door and leaned against his truck.

  “Fair enough.”

  I crossed my arms.

  He nodded. “Like I said, I was told you were hiding intel that could affect the state of the free world. I had a new mission. You can take the boy out of the Marines, but you can’t take the Marines out of the boy. Then . . . fuck.” He ran his hands over his stubbled hair. “When you said you weren’t hiding anything, you were pretty damn convincing. Plus, you let me go free when anyone else would have laid me six feet under. And there was the fact you got one of my guys off a murder charge. Tucker Rhodes, man. He’d have been in a bad way, otherwise. So no way I was going to hurt you any more than I already had. Not what I signed up for when I set out to save the world. I believed you didn’t have the goods, and I backed off. Later . . .” He sucked in a long breath of air, eased it out. “Later I learned they were still after Malik. I got out.”

  “And then did what?”

  He gave a rueful shake. “Oh, I played like I was still in the game, but I didn’t do anything useful. I ditched my phone, lost myself in Texas for a time. Then they killed Kane. I’ve spent the last couple of days shaking the tree, trying to roll something loose. Haven’t won myself any friends that way.”

  “The blood in your shower.”

  “I sent some questions up the chain. The Alpha answered with a cleanup man.”

  “Who you killed.”

  “Law of the jungle.”

  “You know I will kick your ass, then put a bullet in your brain if it turns out you’re lying to me about any of this.”

  “What I like. A girl who knows how to sweet-talk a man.” His teeth flashed in the dark. “Now let’s get down to business. We got us some Alpha ass to fry.”

  Back in Paul’s office, with the jukebox in the bar bellowing out Led Zeppelin, I scrounged once more through his desk until I found a crumpled pack of cigarettes. With a book of Joe’s Tavern matches, an apologetic shrug toward Colorado’s smoking ban, and a promise of never again, I lit up. I filled my lungs and carried the half-empty beer bottle to the window. Clyde resumed his spot under the window and sprawled across my feet.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said softly.

  Clyde twitched his ears and closed his eyes.

  Darkness pressed against the glass.

  My mind kept tossing up images of the Marines who’d been brought into MA during the time Sarge had talked about, the time of the EFPs. Young men, barely past being kids, ripped apart so that putting them together was like working a macabre jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

  The Sir standing in the bunker telling us to pencil in the missing parts.

  Shade it black.

  I swallowed. My throat and chest burned like someone had poured acid down my windpipe. I finished the beer and tapped ashes into the empty.

  There was no reason under the sun for Iran to have weapons or technology from an American firm. At least, no good reason. We’d severed diplomatic relations with Iran and put the country under economic sanctions in 1980, after they’d taken fifty-two of our embassy people and held them hostage for over a year.

  Plus, there were all kinds of checks in place to prevent American companies from selling to the bad guys.

  Selling legally, anyway. Throw away the rules, and anything’s possible.

  I inhaled. Exhaled. Gently, I tugged my feet free of Clyde’s bulk and went back to the desk. I set down the beer bottle, leaned against the chair, and nicotined my way through my thoughts.

  Then again, the laws hadn’t stopped a lot of people. Flip through the DOJ’s periodic summary of companies and individuals who violated the Arms Export Control Act—required reading for my job—and you’d be astonished by the number of people found guilty of trying to smuggle intelligence and goods to foreign powers. Hundreds, maybe thousands.

  And those were just the stupid ones. The ones who got caught.

  But that list of felons was a far cry from suggesting that seemingly upright companies like Valor and Vigilant were selling to the bad guys. I picked up Kane’s glossy brochures. Valor remained a black hole outside of their pamphlet. But judging by Vigilant’s expanding real estate and a client list that included nations, the companies appear
ed to be doing just fine. There was no reason for them to take the kind of risk involved in violating sanctions.

  I circled back to James Osborne. A diplomatic posting to Iraq likely meant Baghdad, a mere two hours away from our FOB. If the timing was right, it could mean that Osborne was in-country when CIA agent Richard Dalton was there and during the time Dougie had been sheep-dipped—pulled into covert activity—by the same intelligence agency.

  I dropped the remains of the cigarette in the empty bottle, picked up my phone, and called a friend in the State Department.

  I’d met Alison Handel in Kuwait before we’d entered Iraq. She was on her way to join the embassy staff in Saddam’s palace, while I was headed to a military base in the middle of the desert. We were the only American women in town for a few hours, and we’d become fast friends over airline bottles of vodka. We’d stayed in touch through career changes and family drama, and now I reached her at her home in Delaware. After the formalities, I told her I was looking for information about James Osborne.

  “That low-life, scum-sucking, pecker-headed, bottom-dealing, swindling asshole? Makes me happy I’m not in the business anymore. What do you want to know?”

  Asshole. That sounded promising.

  “Did James Osborne work in the embassy in Baghdad three years ago?”

  “That’s no secret. He worked in DAS.”

  The Defense Attaché Service. The men and women in DAS assisted the US ambassador on military matters. They also handled political and military matters within their area of jurisdiction.

  Even more promising.

  I said, “He travel out of the Green Zone much?”

  “Probably. Hold on.” The click of a lighter, then the exhale of smoke came across the miles. “What I remember most about him is that he spent a lot of time entertaining visiting Saudis.”

  Grooming future clients, maybe. “Does that fit with the job description?”

  “That’s above my pay grade. But whatever Osborne’s deal was at the embassy, he’d made it pretty sweet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For one thing, most of us lived in reconstituted shipping containers. But Osborne had gotten himself ensconced in one of the villas along the river. Downright luxurious. Clearly the man had high-level connections. I used to jog along the Tigris, and I’d see him and a few other staffers on the patio having drinks and cigars. I recognized the Americans he socialized with—three guys whose paths crossed mine now and again, usually at embassy parties. Didn’t know their names. But they and Osborne must have been friends, because none of them worked together.”

  “What do you think they were doing?”

  “Um, drinking and comparing golf scores? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But sometimes . . .” A pause while she drifted off.

  “Spill it.”

  She cleared her throat. “I’d see them in the Residential Palace now and again, heads together, talking quietly. Not that it was a crime. But something felt off about it. The only other people I ever saw that group with were the Saudis.”

  “How do you know they were Saudis?”

  “I was in logistics, remember? Somebody always wanted something. Especially when it came to entertaining foreign dignitaries. One of the Saudis was at our embassy quite a bit. He was one of the royals, probably looking to cut his own path, independent of his family. We were contracting out a lot of business back then.”

  I thought of the picture of the Saudi prince on Vigilant’s website.

  “What else can you tell me? About Osborne, I mean.”

  “Oh, he was a smooth operator, that one. Popular with the women. Good looking. Family money. Had that mystique that surrounds anyone you suspect works in intelligence. But way too arrogant for my taste. One of those guys who’d go down with a sinking ship because he’d never actually believe his ship could fail. When a guy like that falls—and I hope to Christ he does—he takes a lot of good people with him.”

  Her voice had gone flat.

  Ever astute, I said, “There’s something else.”

  “Yes. Maybe.”

  She fell silent, and I prompted her. “Alison?”

  “A friend of mine in the Defense Attaché told me about a weird thing that happened. She was running during her lunch break, going through the residential area. Not the villas where Osborne lived, but the slums. You know about them?”

  “The Green Zone has slums?”

  “It’s where a bunch of locals took up residence after Saddam’s forces fled. They never caused any trouble, and we never evicted them. Going there wasn’t exactly unsafe, but my friend said it did tend to keep her on her toes, which she liked. Bit of an adrenaline junkie. Anyway, she told me that one day she saw Osborne there with another man, someone she hadn’t seen before. The two were standing in a doorway, as if they were about to part. When my friend spotted them, she ducked behind a car. She said she didn’t know why. The whole thing just seemed odd enough that she decided it was better if they didn’t see her. She caught part of their conversation. Not any specific words. Just their voices. They were speaking Farsi.”

  “Farsi? This guy with Osborne was Iranian?”

  “Maybe. Don’t read too much into it. He could have been Iranian American, maybe a civilian contractor.”

  “Or he could have been in Iraq to help out the Shia militias. You know Iran was backing those guys.”

  “If that were true,” Alison said, “he’d never have gotten into the Green Zone.”

  “Then why speak in Farsi?”

  “A way to have privacy while among the Arabs, maybe? Of course, we were cutting deals with the Shia militias back then, so when my friend told me about it, I guess I wasn’t totally surprised. This man could have been a go-between. He wouldn’t have been one of the guys on the wanted posters, but he could have been lower level.”

  “She ever see him again?”

  “Nope.”

  “Interesting.” The Iranian connection sent my mind to Zarif, hiding Malik all the way down in Mexico. “You think you can get me the names of the staffers Osborne hung out with?”

  “I’m not in the biz anymore, remember? I’ll ask around, but people don’t tend to talk to those who aren’t on the inside.”

  “Whatever you can find. And thanks. You’ve been a help.”

  “Always ready to do my part for the free world. I find those names, I’ll let you know.”

  We chatted a few more minutes, then hung up. I returned to my place at the window. The headache sent up a last flare, then faded to a dull ache under the influence of the pills.

  So okay. As Kane had already checked, Osborne had been in Iraq at the right time. That bit of intel had value only as a strategy to narrow my list of potential Alphas from one to . . . well, one. But a lot of people had been in-country during that time. Not all of them got villas, but some did. Any number of people could have worked to cover up the arrival of the weapons or arranged for the murders of Haifa and Resenko.

  Then again . . .

  Probably not too many were holing up for furtive talks with staffers in unrelated departments. Or carrying out secret meetings with Iranians in the slum area where they were unlikely to be spotted.

  Did Valor/Vigilant have an arrangement with Iran?

  That would be treason. The kind of treason worth killing people to hide.

  The hair on the back of my neck rose.

  A song from the jukebox filtered through the door—a Frank Stallone song about things being far from over. I reached for the second beer, and realized that it, along with the chili, the tortillas, and the first beer were history. Mindless eating and drinking. I looked at the clock display on my computer and was startled to realize I’d been at this for a couple of hours.

  I was halfway through my designated time, and all I had was a weak theory and zero proof.

  That much had gotten Kane killed.

  CHAPTER 18

  The problem with trauma is that it opens up a world of the possible you wish
you’d never known about. Once you know that trash conceals IEDs or homes burn down, or friends die young—once you know these things, you cannot unknow them. And that’s when you realize we’re just fish in a barrel.

  —Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.

  The Dark Web is the underbelly of the internet. It’s the home of illicit marketplaces, activist chat rooms, and in its darkest iterations, a place to indulge your worst vices. I was just setting up Tor Browser to hide my IP address—a requirement for Dark Web access—when my phone buzzed.

  Ryan Taft with the RTD.

  I answered with, “Any news?”

  “I got a definite maybe on an avatar for the killer.”

  “You’re a king among men. Tell me.”

  “We actually got a lot of definite maybes. Like you and I talked about, it is conceivably possible to disguise your walk, but there are certain consistencies we can hone in on once we remove other factors. With any luck, I should be able to get a shortened list to you in under an hour.”

  “There’s a place in heaven for you, Ryan.”

  He laughed. “From your lips to God’s ear. In the meantime, I just emailed you some information on the five people on the platform, the ones Kane might have been looking at. I’ll be back in touch soon.”

  We disconnected, and I clicked on Taft’s email. As promised, he’d highlighted five names. Three men and two women, along with their ages, addresses, and the fact that none of them had a criminal record.

  I stared at the list, hoping for a flash of recognition or at least a glimmer of familiarity that had eluded me the first time I’d first seen the list at the Transit Watch Command Center. Still nothing.

  I read the names aloud.

  “Laura Almasi. Sonia Lopez Martinez. Kenneth Riley Napierkowski. Leroy Parker. Thomas Wilson.”

  I did a property-tax search. One of the women, Laura Almasi, had paid taxes on a property in Lindon, which was in eastern Colorado, two hours outside Denver. Not much out there. Maybe she was a rancher. She and Wilson still had out-of-state driver’s licenses for Texas and New Mexico, respectively. Leroy carried an outstanding parking ticket. Nothing about the other two seemed even that noteworthy.