A Thick Crimson Line (Mike Walton Book 3)

by Simon Gervais

  Zaret must have caught her eyeing the inside of a restaurant because he said, “Let’s take ten minutes to find something to eat.”

  Zima was grateful for the suggestion and glad she wasn’t the one who had to admit out loud she was hungry. She wanted a change of clothes too but that could wait. Getting food into her was a priority. She needed the energy.

  Half a block down, a street vendor was preparing falafel sandwiches. Her belly growled at the smell of coriander and fresh herbs.

  “A falafel sandwich plate with a sugar-cane smoothie,” she ordered in Arabic.

  “I’ll have the same,” Eitan added.

  The vendor looked at Zaret who shook his head.

  Zima loved to cook, and observing this vendor prepare their meal helped her escape reality, if only for a short while. For a minute, she wasn’t in Ramallah anymore. She wasn’t about to engage an unknown number of enemy fighters in what might be a futile attempt to save Eitan’s boss. No, for a moment, she was back in Ottawa, hundreds of miles away from the IMSI and all the violence that came with it, and she was comfortably seated in her futon watching the latest Master Chef episode.

  “Twelve shekels,” the vendor said.

  Zima gave him twenty-five. “Keep the change.”

  The vendor smiled and thanked her profusely. She handed one falafel sandwich to Eitan and took a bit of the other one.

  Oh. My. God.

  It was crunchy on the outside but warm and moist on the inside. The second bite was even better, with exploding garlic and chickpea flavors. She dipped the rest of the sandwich in hummus and chased it down with the smoothie.

  Eitan and Zaret were looking at her with interest. Eitan had only taken one bit out of his falafel.

  “What?”

  “Did you know twelve shekels was the cost for two falafels?” Zaret asked. “You gave him a huge tip.”

  “That’s cheap. What’s the conversion rate these days?”

  “About four shekels to every US dollar.”

  A good falafel would cost more than five times this amount in the United States. At least Ramallah had this going for it.

  “We should go,” Zaret said. “We’re only three minutes away.”

  Eitan took one last bite of his sandwich and discarded the rest in a trashcan.

  The safe house was just off Manara Square and they reached it two minutes later. Zaret knocked six times on a large, gray doublewide garage door and waited fifteen seconds. He then knocked five more times and waited another ten seconds before the door opened automatically.

  “Go inside,” Zaret ordered. “Quick.”

  The door only lifted two feet from the ground. When it was clear it wouldn’t go up further, Eitan rolled under it and Zima followed him.

  The garage closed behind her before she had the time to get up. There were no lights inside the garage.

  “What the hell?” Eitan said. Clearly, he wasn’t impressed either. The air reeked of motor oil and cigarette smoke. A sour knot formed in Zima’s stomach. Why had Zaret not followed them in? Had he been turned?

  She placed her hands on the garage door and was about to try to pull it up when a powerful bright light came from the corner of the room, blinding her. She instinctively moved her hands to her eyes but it was too late. She had lost the little night vision she had. Her next move was to go for her weapon, a Beretta Pico.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” someone snapped in English.

  Even though she couldn’t see them, Zima sensed people moving around the room. By the number of boots trundling the floor, she estimated at least three men. There was no way she could get a shot off before being mowed down. She hoped Eitan had come to the same conclusion.

  “I’m Captain Burke, United States Special Forces,” said the man holding the spotlight to their eyes. “You’re surrounded and you’ll be cut to pieces before you reach for your weapons.”

  Burke, Special Forces. Zima had heard the name before. But where? When?

  The Special Forces officer continued, his voice firm but non-threatening. “Keep your hands up, get on your knees and interlock your fingers.”

  Zima hesitated, but the unmistakable sound of a selector switching from safe to full-auto convinced her to obey the commands.

  The moment she was on her knees, another light shone in her face. She involuntarily stared away and saw that Eitan was getting the same treatment. A man was aiming what looked like a modified M4 at Eitan’s head while another man patted him down. Hands expertly searched her for hidden weapons and found the small combat knife she kept strapped to the inside of her right calf and the tiny Beretta Pico concealed in her inside-the-waistband holster. The search was a little too thorough for Zima’s taste.

  “All clear,” said the man next to her.

  “Same here,” the man standing next to Eitan said.

  Someone flicked on the lights in the garage. Zima examined her surroundings. The garage was larger than she’d thought but there was no furniture. The walls were painted a dirty shade of beige. A door behind Captain Burke was the only other exit. Her initial estimate of three men was wrong. There were six in total. With the exception of Burke, who was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a black t-shirt, all the others were dressed in civilian khakis.

  “Sorry about this,” Burke said, turning off the spotlight he had used to temporarily blind them. “We needed to make sure you didn’t carry a vest. You wouldn’t believe how many guys get blown up because they don’t do their due diligence.”

  “We understand,” Eitan said, getting up.

  “And you’re late,” Burke continued, looking at his watch.

  “Our drop off spot wasn’t secured. We had to wait longer.”

  “Be that as it may, there’s a possibility our mark was moved to another location.”

  “Let’s hope not. What do you have for us?” Eitan asked.

  Zima studied Burke’s face, searching her memory for hints of where she’d seen him.

  “You’re coming?” Eitan asked her, following Captain Burke through the door.

  She was still on her knees. The man next to her helped her to her feet.

  “Here you go,” he said, returning her knife and Beretta. “I’m Dean.”

  Zima replaced her knife in its sheath but checked her pistol before holstering it.

  “Zima,” she offered, accepting his extended hand.

  “I hope I didn’t invade your privacy too much,” Dean said. It sounded like a genuine apology. He had a wedding ring and sincere eyes.

  “Not at all.”

  She joined Eitan and Burke in the other room. Same ugly paint, same horrid smell, but it had no garage door, only a lonely window so dirty the space would be kept in infinite darkness if it wasn’t for the bulb attached to the ceiling. A simple wooden table with four odd-looking chairs provided furniture. A small white fridge was plugged into a wall socket.

  Eitan and Burke were busy removing a wide metallic plank from the floor. In a flash, she remembered where she had seen Burke. It was at the IMSI headquarters. She had never spoken to him but Mapother had seemed to know him pretty well. If Mapother trusted him, that was good enough for her.

  “Come and look at this, Zima.” Eitan pointed to the weapons cache.

  The cache held a multitude of rifles, pistols, magazines, ammunition and grenades. It contained more than a dozen tactical vests and an assortment of silencers, flashlights and Meals Ready to Eat—MREs.

  Zima was impressed.

  “Take what you need and join us in the garage,” Burke said. “I’d like your opinion before we finalize our ops plan.”

  “You’re coming with us?” Eitan asked.

  Zima was surprised too. Matthias Sachar hadn’t mentioned joining forces with another element.

  “We are.”

  “What’s
your angle, Captain?” Zima asked.

  “No angle. Me and my team were ordered here.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, we appreciate the help, but who ordered you here?”

  “Someone with enough pull to take me and my team out of our theater of operations,” Burke said. He didn’t look pleased about his new assignment. “And that’s not a small feat.”

  Burke did an about face and joined the rest of his team in the garage.

  “You didn’t know about this?” Zima asked, poking Eitan on the shoulder.

  “No, but, like you said, I’m grateful for the help.”

  “I’ve seen him before.”

  That caught Eitan’s attention. “Really? Where was that?”

  “At the IMSI headquarters. I saw him speaking with Charles Mapother.”

  “Is he with the IMSI?”

  “No. Mapother would have told me, I think.”

  ........

  There wasn’t a single thing Captain Burke liked about this half-assed mission. He and his team were doing good work in Syria. Embedded with the Kurds’ forces for the last two years, they had led them on numerous operations against ISIS troops in Syria. One of these missions, the last-minute rescue of three CIA officers—at least that’s what he thought at the time—had garnered interest from DNI Phillips himself. A week later, he was ordered to return to Washington to receive new mission directives from Phillips. Since Phillips wasn’t in his chain of command, a four-star army general had been present to impress upon him the importance of the meeting. He had left the moment Burke acknowledged that Phillips had all the authority he needed to make Burke’s life even more miserable than it already was. Another man, a certain Charles Mapother, had also attended. Mapother explained that he was the director of a small and privately owned intelligence agency and that the three operatives whose lives he had saved in Syria belonged to him. Burke had never heard of the International Market Stabilization Institute, but Mapother seemed to enjoy the DNI’s confidence.

  Following his fifteen minutes meeting with Phillips and Mapother, his budget had quintupled, which was great. What wasn’t so great was his new chain of command. He was to report directly to DNI Phillips. He had no problem dealing with civilians, but they often didn’t understand how the army worked and asked for things that weren’t even remotely possible. Still, he appreciated the latitude—and the money—the DNI had given him. Burke and Mapother had then flown to New York where Burke was given a small tour of the IMSI building. It had seemed like a waste of time to Burke. So, when he asked Mapother point blank why he’d brought him to New York, Mapother had replied, “This is where some of your orders will come from, Captain. I want to make sure you know that we understand the dynamics of the battlefield you’re operating in. The missions won’t be half-cocked. I promise.”

  Before this specific mission, Mapother had kept his promise. The operations the DNI—or did they really come from Mapother?— had assigned to his team had played a major role in helping allied forces break through ISIS lines. There was still a lot of work to do, but Burke was beginning to see more and more cracks within the ISIS elements he was fighting against. His team was just about to embark on a new mission deep down into ISIS territory when the DNI countermanded his own order and asked him and his men to travel to Ramallah for a rescue operation. Burke had protested. Strongly. It made no sense to go from Syria to Ramallah to save a single asset. But there was a limit to how much weight his opinion carried with the Director of National Intelligence. So here they were in Ramallah, with two unknown operatives, on a mission to save a man named Meir Yatom. He had no idea who Yatom was.

  Alistair Rousseau, the team’s communication specialist, was holding the sat phone.

  “For you, boss.”

  Burke looked at the display to make sure the phone was secured before he spoke.

  “This is Caveman.”

  “Caveman, this is Alpha Zero Six.”

  Charles Mapother. That was a first. Mapother had never called him during an ongoing operation before. Burke signaled his men to be quiet.

  “Go ahead for Caveman, Alpha Zero Six.”

  “Please confirm my two assets have made it to your location.”

  “Confirmed. One female and one man.”

  “That’s good news,” Mapother said. He sounded relieved. “Both are experienced operators. Follow their lead.”

  Burke didn’t like where this conversation was going. His men wouldn’t be pleased either. Burked sighed loud enough. “Alpha Zero Six, I don’t—”

  “This is an approved Level-One Sierra Whisky Tango operation, Caveman.”

  What? A Level-One Sierra Whisky Tango designation indicated the president had approved the mission and that its success was deemed vital to the security interest of the United States.

  “Caveman copy,” Burke replied.

  “Good luck.”

  Burke threw the phone back to Rousseau.

  “We’re good?” the communication specialist asked.

  Burke didn’t respond to him directly. Instead, he asked his men to gather up around him. Once he had their attention, he explained the situation to them.

  “Who the hell is Meir Yatom?” Albert Manchester asked when he was done. Manchester was the team medic. He had been a second-year medical student at Harvard when the twin towers collapsed. He enlisted a week later.

  Before Burke could answer, Eitan walked in and said, “I’ll answer that.”

  CHAPTER 76

  IMSI Headquarters, New York City

  Mike watched the medical team as they carefully changed Sassani’s dressing. The trip from the hospital to the IMSI headquarters had been rougher on her than expected. Sassani had passed out on her way to the medical bay. Mike wasn’t sure why she had lost consciousness, but she had some of the best health professionals in the state of New York working on her. Her wellbeing didn’t concern him as much as the fact that he couldn’t talk to her.

  “What happened to her?” Mapother asked.

  “I have no idea,” Mike said truthfully. “The doctor has been ignoring me for the last fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s problematic.”

  Mapother knocked on the glass partition dividing the area he and Mike were in from the sterile medical bay. Dr. Doocy looked up and approached the glass when he saw it was Mapother. He was clearly annoyed at being disturbed.

  “Dr. Doocy,” Mapother said through the glass. “When will we be able to speak with her?”

  “Ten to fifteen minutes.”

  “Did you find out what happened to her?” Mike asked.

  Dr. Doocy nodded. “I did. Well, I should say one of the nurses did. The patient suffers from hypoglycemia. We injected her with glucagon. She’ll be fine.”

  Mike had no idea what glucagon was, and Mapother’s expression revealed he didn’t know either. So, when Lisa walked in a minute later, Mike asked her.

  “Why do you need to know?”

  “Dr. Doocy told us he injected Sassani with glucagon.”

  “It’s a hormone, Mike,” his wife replied. “It causes the liver to release glucose into the blood. We use it on patients who need a quick increase of their blood sugar level.”

  “The doctor said she’d wake up in a few minutes,” Mapother said. “Any side effects we should worry about?”

  “Nausea and vomiting are the most common, but I wouldn’t worry about it. Ask her what you need to, Charles.”

  “Mike will handle the interrogation.”

  As a former police officer, Mike was an experienced interrogator, though the last interrogation he handled had turned deadly for the interviewee. Mike remembered it vividly and was sure Mapother did too since it had taken place at his brother’s penthouse in Tversakaya, one of Moscow’s most sought-after neighborhoods. He had transformed Frank Mapother’s white, marble-tiled hallway int
o a crimson river when he had severed the jugular of one of the Sheik’s Russian thugs.

  Mike was confident Sassani’s interrogation wouldn’t end the same way. Sassani seemed genuinely willing to cooperate.

  “How’s Sassani’s background check going?” Mike asked.

  “Jonathan is almost done. You wanna see it now?”

  “I’d better. I’ll need a few minutes to get ready.”

  To establish dominance over Sassani, it was important to know when she was lying and when she was telling the truth. To do that, Mike would know the answers to the first twenty questions he was going to ask her. Some questions would be mundane, others more specific. What Jonathan Sanchez had dug up on Sassani would help him achieve that.

  CHAPTER 77

  The Canada-United States border

  By area, Canada was the second largest country in the world while the United States was the fourth. The boundary between the two countries—including the maritime boundaries—was over five thousand five hundred miles long, making it the longest international border in the world. It was also undefended, applying the term in the military sense. Civilian law enforcement agencies were present on both sides of the border and it was illegal to cross the border outside border controls. The low level of security stood in sharp contrast with the Mexican-United States border. Although one third the length of the Canadian border, the Mexico-United States border was much more problematic for the Americans. Tehran estimated illegal entries from Mexico into the United States at more than half a million per year. It was believed that the United States Border Patrol had twenty thousand agents guarding the border with Mexico, a number that impressed Davari. His own Quds Force had less than fifteen thousand members.

  It was no secret to both the Canadian and American governments that the border wasn’t easy to guard, due to its size. Hidden sensors scattered in the wooded areas near the crossing points and on the roads and paths could detect illegal crossings, but it wasn’t adequate. There weren’t enough personnel on either side of the border to verify and intercept coordinated incursions like the one Davari and his team used to cross into the United States.