The Devil's Hand

by Carr, Jack

  Reece had built a pattern of life on his targeted individual over the past few days. Sohrab had been getting back to his room late each night between midnight and 1:00 a.m. Tonight Reece would be waiting.

  The third-story room was obscured from view of the highway by large trees that also helped dampen the noise of freeway traffic. There were no cameras observing that particular side of the four-story structure, and the curtains were pulled in the two rooms he would have to bypass on his way to the third floor.

  Having checked out of his room the day before, Reece pulled his Land Cruiser onto a side street away from the outdoor hotel parking lot in a position to observe the area. There were no lights illuminating the two rooms he would climb past on his way to the third-level terrace. He could see the approach to the hotel and noted that his target had not returned earlier than expected. At 11:00 p.m. Reece moved from his vehicle, down the street and across a grass- and tree-studded park to the edge of the hotel. After pausing to ensure a late-night walker had not compromised his approach, he climbed to the edge of the first-floor railing and jumped, pulling himself up onto the second-floor veranda. Once again, he stopped to look and listen. Confident he had not been discovered, he heaved himself up and onto the balcony of his target. He knelt down out of sight and listened, closing his eyes to further enhance his sense of hearing.

  Nothing.

  He gave it a full two minutes before moving to the sliding glass door, being sure to stay low and out of sight. He jammed the sturdy flathead into the lower portion of the tack, pushing down on the tool to leverage the door out of its track while yanking it open with his left hand. It pulled free of its safety catch and Reece entered the room.

  * * *

  What the hell is he doing in Atlanta? Crimmins wondered.

  They had been on Reece for almost a week and Crimmins didn’t know how much longer he could put up with his partner, whom he’d nicknamed “Worthless Woody.” Reece had checked into the extended-stay hotel, far enough outside the trendy Buckhead area to keep the price down. It was an inexpensive option for those unwilling to pay the five-hundred-dollar-a-night prices of the hotels near the bars, restaurants, and nightlife of the uptown commercial district. It catered to road crew construction teams, families on cross-country road trips, and cheating spouses looking for a discreet midday rendezvous, an illicit fling during an extra-long lunch break.

  The two Masada teams were staying at the Westin and kept tabs on their prey electronically. The crews rotated every eight hours, with the on-duty team setting up across Peachtree Road in a mall parking lot where they could change positions periodically without attracting too much attention. Though they didn’t have “eyes-on,” they were in a position to follow their target when he left the hotel, which he did each morning, taking one of three different routes to East Atlanta. Their surveillance notes indicated he spent much of his time in his vehicle around the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam Mosque.

  What are you up to, you son of a bitch?

  Their target’s movements coincided with another guest at the hotel, a man driving a midsize rental car who appeared to be working at the mosque. Crimmins had “Worthless” capture high-resolution stills and video of the new person of interest and forwarded those to Masada higher headquarters.

  Hours later the Masada surveillance detail received a report and were told to continue shadowing their primary target.

  Tonight, Reece’s Land Cruiser was not in the hotel parking lot. It was parked just down the street. That put Crimmins on edge.

  In Iraq, Crimmins had noticed similarities between how their ground intelligence teams had developed target packages and how his uncle had taught him to hunt whitetails in the Tennessee of his youth. Humans and animals were creatures of habit. It was all about identifying patterns. He’d been involved in enough surveillance details at home and abroad to know what Reece was doing.

  He was hunting.

  CHAPTER 24

  REECE WAITED IN DARKNESS.

  He’d wetted down the Dead Air Odessa-9 suppressor with water from the bathroom sink to further dampen the sound. The suppressor was threaded onto the True Precision barrel of his SIG P365. Contrary to what Hollywood had programmed moviegoers to think, silencers didn’t actually “silence” a gunshot. Rather, they suppressed the noise to more palatable levels, which is why the military community called them suppressors, in contrast to Hiram Maxim’s original patent language, which called them silencers. Reece planned to take one well-aimed head shot as his target entered the room.

  No plan survives first contact with the enemy, Reece.

  That’s why you have more than one round. Be prepared.

  Reece glanced at the vintage Rolex Submariner on his wrist.

  Anytime now.

  At the sound of a woman’s voice Reece jerked his head from his watch.

  What the fuck? I know I’m in the right room.

  Bolting from the chair in the corner, Reece bounded past the bed and peered through the peephole before quickly retracting and throwing his back against the wall in the dead space behind the door.

  Shit!

  Sohrab Behzad had a woman with him.

  Reece’s mind raced.

  Take a breath and make a call, Reece.

  The former frogman pulled his pistol down against his abdomen into the Sul position to get as flat as possible. Sul was Portuguese for “south” and had been developed in Brazil as a way to move more safely through crowds with a handgun without drawing the type of attention one would otherwise generate at the low ready or high port. Right now, Reece used it in an attempt to melt into the wall as the door swung open on its automatic commercial closer.

  Shit!

  Before the door had even shut to give Reece the time he needed to bring the pistol up for a shot, Sohrab had grabbed the woman and pulled her through the small entry toward the bedroom. He tore off her leather jacket as he spun her around and drove her toward the bed. Had he not been distracted by her artificially enhanced breasts, he might have taken the time to professionally assess the room. Sohrab was thinking with his dick.

  Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

  Emerging from his position against the wall, Reece moved into the bedroom, slowly working to get an angle that wouldn’t endanger the woman. Her jacket was on the floor and her tight top was pushed up, revealing a lacey bra that struggled to contain her tits. She had Sohrab’s full attention. His left hand held her head to his, his face buried in the side of her neck, his other hand forcing its way down the front of her tight skirt between her legs.

  That attention shifted in an instant when the woman opened her eyes and screamed. A creature had materialized from the entryway, a creature holding a gun. Sohrab spun, instinctually throwing the girl at the threat.

  No shot.

  Reece retracted his pistol to a position of retention and deflected her momentum with his forearm, sending her crashing into the closet.

  Win the fight.

  Reece charged forward, driving his opponent facedown onto the bed, still attempting a single shot to minimize the risk of discovery. Holding him down with his support hand, Reece struggled to index his muzzle on the back of his adversary’s head, which would have worked on an untrained opponent. It didn’t work on Sohrab.

  With a violent twist, Sohrab threw Reece off balance, elbowing him in the side of the head and pushing him back off the bed just as Reece’s trigger finger sent a shot into the mattress. The mosque security man was now in his element, using a leg sweep to take Reece to the ground between the wall and the bed. Falling to the floor with his attacker, Sohrab pinned Reece’s pistol to the wall by the suppressor while raining down a succession of hard blows with his free hand.

  Covering his head with his left hand in an attempt to counter the hits, Reece drew his left knee up and to the inside, creating space as Sohrab went for the mount. That was the opportunity Reece needed to draw his blade from appendix carry with his left hand in a reverse grip and stab it directly
into Sohrab’s groin. He retracted it quickly and thrust it into his target’s diaphragm.

  Feeling the sharp intrusion, Sohrab’s body reacted. His hand loosened on the pistol he still had pinned to the wall, allowing Reece to rip it back and fire two rapid shots. The first went into Sohrab’s leg just above the kneecap. The second went into his upper thigh, tearing through muscle, sinew, and bone, with the largest bullet fragments finding their way into his hip. Desperately wanting to get out from underneath the surprisingly heavy man, Reece thrust his pelvis up and to the side, sending his target forward and smashing his head into the bedside table. Aggressively turning to get to his feet, Reece moved to cover by the closet, pushing the still-screaming woman back toward the entryway and sending two more shots at the man who now had a pistol in his hand.

  Where the hell did that come from?

  Sohrab took one of Reece’s bullets to the groin and another to his lower abdomen while shooting three rounds into the wall as Reece disappeared into the entryway. The sound of the unsuppressed pistol was deafening in the small space.

  Shit, I hope that didn’t kill anyone sleeping next door, Reece thought. End this.

  Preparing to get the angle and put Sohrab down, Reece felt the flurry of blows from behind. He spun, obstructing the girl’s punches, first knocking her to the closet and then kicking her into the bedroom. The force of the kick sent her flying past Sohrab, who fired two shots at the movement, both of which missed and again impacted the wall.

  Taking advantage of the misdirection, Reece went to a knee to change levels. Emerging from cover, he put two well-placed shots into Sohrab’s upper thorax. Pouncing from the kneeling position, Reece closed on the man who had helped facilitate 9/11. With the blade still in his support hand he stabbed Sohrab in the hip, exploding upward and opening the left side of Sohrab’s body from his pelvis to his chest. With his knife embedded in his enemy’s deltoid, he used his elbow to check Sohrab’s gun off line, trapping him at the door of the bathroom across from the bed. Moving the suppressor of his pistol under the wounded man’s chin, Reece looked him in the eye and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 25

  ALI ANSARI WAS FULFILLING his due diligence. Of all the assets in place across the United States, he had the most specific information on Sohrab Behzad. The man worked for the Islamic Relief Society of America and had been in and out of mosques developing security plans for almost twenty years. According to the file, Sohrab came from a devout Islamic home. The family had disowned his sister years ago. Lucky for her she didn’t live in Afghanistan. Ali knew that when she left the world of the living, she would spend eternity in the fires of al-Nar. In fact, Jahannam might be the next place the siblings were reunited.

  Ali pulled his car to a stop across the street from the extended-stay hotel. He’d tailed Sohrab from the hotel to the mosque to dinner at the home of the imam and then into an area of the city one wouldn’t want to spend much time in unless it was absolutely necessary. Ali wondered why Sohrab didn’t pick one of the more upscale gentlemen’s clubs in Atlanta.

  Two hours later, Sohrab exited and picked up a woman by the back entrance. It was not difficult to discern that she was a whore just like his sister. No matter. Sohrab would soon be dead. They had an appointment in Briarwood Park the following day. There Ali would pass on the Marburg dispersal device along with the vitamin D tablet “antidote.” Atlanta would suffer the same fate as Denver.

  Ali was about to start up his car and return to his hotel, his curiosity satisfied, when he heard the gunshots. Instantly alerted, he focused his attention back on the four-story establishment. His breathing intensified as he wondered what was happening and if he should get out of the area before the police arrived. Catching movement in his peripheral vision, he watched as a side door swung open and a man and woman swiftly moved into the dark wooded area just south of the hotel. The woman was the same one who had entered with Sohrab, but the man was someone new.

  What is this?

  The man kept his head down but was obviously alert, his arm around the women who stumbled along next to him.

  Ali took pictures with his cell phone before they vanished into the darkness.

  For a moment, Ali didn’t know whether to follow the man and the whore, stay observing the hotel to find out what happened to Sohrab, or turn tail and put as much distance between him and the gunshots as possible.

  Trusting his instincts, he hit the start button and eased into the night. As his headlights illuminated his marks, Ali was careful not to change speed. He passed them getting into a Land Cruiser. Had it been a different car, Ali might not have noticed, but it was a vehicle prevalent in the land of his upbringing and not so prevalent in the United States. He had also seen it before, outside the house of Kareem Talib in Chicago.

  Ali’s heart raced faster than his mind. A nervous sweat caused him to take a tighter grip on the wheel, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror and out the side windows looking for any sign of the American FBI.

  If law enforcement were onto him, they would not have allowed him to pass the device to the assets in Texas and Colorado. Were they following him? Was he leading them to the entire cell? Had all his hard work been for nothing? No, the Americans would have stopped him. This was something different.

  Ali drove exactly the posted speed limit, watching the cars around him. He pulled into a gas station on the outskirts of the city. He still had a mission. He carefully screwed a time-release mechanism onto the virus dispersal device and left it in an overflowing trash can. It would not be as effective as what Ali had originally planned for a local hospital, but in this business one had to adapt.

  The cold perspiration continued to intensify until he pulled into a motel just over the Alabama border. Acting as naturally as possible, he checked in and went to his room. He requested one with a view of the parking lot and immediately parted the drapes at the window, half-expecting to see a fleet of American police cars descend upon him. He opened his BioDine work computer and selected a VPN. He then entered a username and password for a photo-sharing account, activating a protocol to be used only in the case of extreme emergency.

  Via Bluetooth, he shared the photos he’d taken of the man and the hooker as they exited the hotel, along with the video he’d taken as he passed them in the street. He uploaded both to the photo-sharing service and into an album of innocuous photographs of national parks, flowers, mountains, and monuments, photos that looked like any other photo-sharing account storing vacation memories.

  Why had the Land Cruiser been at the location of two of Ali’s assets? Surely the Americans would have used a more innocuous vehicle for a professional surveillance detail. The fact that Ali had not been arrested suggested that something else was at play.

  As per their prearranged procedures, Ali’s uploaded photo and video to their shared database meant there was a problem. If Ali uploaded a photo, the receiver knew it was a picture of someone who threatened the mission, someone who had to be eliminated.

  * * *

  Hafez Qassem received the alert that new photos had been uploaded to the shared account the following morning. An hour later he had confirmation that the man in the photo was a former commando with an interesting history. Qassem had a face, a name, and a vehicle. If Ali had risked sending the photo, he needed the man dead. Qassem hit a button on his desk phone, summoning an assistant who appeared a moment later.

  The Iranian intelligence chief was about to activate a sleeper cell on American soil. By the end of the day a team of assassins would have orders to kill James Reece.

  PART 2 INFECTION

  “Marg bar āmrikā”

  “Death to America”

  —ALI KHAMENEI, IRAN’S SUPREME LEADER

  CHAPTER 26

  Camden, North Carolina

  ERIK SAWYER FINISHED READING the report for the fourth time and tossed it onto his desk, leaning back in his Wegner swivel chair and interlacing his fingers behind his head.

  Lieutenant Co
mmander James Reece, what are you up to?

  Save for the lavish chair, his office as founder and CEO of Masada Security Solutions was no different than the nine other offices that dotted the administration building of the largest paramilitary training facility in the United States.

  Just across the Virginia border in North Carolina, Masada’s eight-thousand-acre flagship compound boasted indoor and outdoor shooting ranges, a driving track, a lake for waterborne insertion operations, two sniper ranges, an airfield, “kill houses,” a maritime interdiction trainer, and a multipurpose K9 complex. They had also constructed what they called the “Tactical Training Laboratory,” a huge state-of-the-art indoor facility housing multiple buses and airplane fuselages. Lighting, audio, fog, and temperature could be configured from a control room that filmed the practice runs for later debriefings and assessments. They even had a 150-foot ship available to rent for Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure “underway” training docked in Norfolk. Located within driving distance for special operations units based in Fort Bragg and Virginia Beach and the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team in Quantico, Virginia, Masada was a playground for the best operators in the world. It was also the headquarters of Sawyer’s private army.

  Sawyer preferred his office to look just like those of “the boys,” the retired operators and spooks who ran the day-to-day operations of what had popularly become known as a PMC, or private military company. His employees were called contractors in Western parlance. The rest of the world called them mercenaries. Behind his back, he was disparagingly called the “Whore of War” by those critical of outsourcing America’s wars to for-profit companies. Sawyer wore the moniker as a badge of honor.