“Here you go, safe and sound like I promised,” the smuggler said as they arrived at a junction of two roads. “Welcome to the United States.”
The trip had taken a little less than six hours. The walk through the woods hadn’t been particularly difficult. No wonder hundreds of illegals were taking the same route every day to reach Canada.
Davari checked his GPS. They were four miles into the United States. Transportation had already been arranged. He just needed to secure it.
“What’s your name again?” he asked the smuggler.
“Bertrand.”
“Musa, you would mind giving Bertrand his due?”
Mariwala threw a backpack to Bertrand. Even though the only light came from the moon, Bertrand caught the backpack mid-flight. He unzipped it and peeked inside with the help of a small red penlight. When he looked back at Davari, he was smiling.
“That’s more than we agreed on,” Bertrand said. “Thanks.”
“For a job well done.”
“It was an easy job. You guys didn’t complain at all. People usually moan and bitch the whole way in.”
Davari wanted to tell him they were elite soldiers, members of the Quds Force and accustomed to working in harsh conditions. The last six hours had been nothing more than a walk in the park for him and his men. But he kept quiet.
“Will you need anything else?”
“You told me earlier you’d be waiting for someone else before getting back to Canada?”
“Yes, a young family.” Bertrand checked his watch. “They should be here momentarily.”
As if on cue, Davari heard a vehicle approaching from the west.
“No one drives on this road. It’s them,” Bertrand said.
“Or border agents,” Davari snapped.
“No, it’s impossible. All the available agents went after our two decoys fifty miles east of here.”
“You sure about that?”
“Look for yourself,” Bertrand said, handing his night-vision goggles to Davari.
Sure enough, a single man climbed out of an SUV less than one hundred yards away. The man paused for about a minute. He didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, as if he was waiting for someone. But Davari knew better. He was acquiring his night vision and listening for threats.
“I think he’s waiting for you,” Davari whispered.
“That’s right. Believe me now?”
Davari grabbed his knife and spun around. He stabbed Bertrand in the side of his neck three times in less than a second. It was too dark to see the blood gushing out of the wounds but Davari heard it. Bertrand’s legs collapsed under him but Mariwala was right behind him and ready to slow his fall.
“Musa, with me. We’ll secure the van,” Davari ordered. “Variyan, stay back in reserve.”
Mariwala already had his sound suppressor screwed on.
“I’ll approach from the front,” said Davari. “With any luck he’ll think I’m Bertrand. You flank him from the right and take down anyone coming out of the van, copy?”
Mariwala moved silently into the woods and Davari gave him a full minute to get in position. Davari doubted Bertrand would have tried to surprise his contact, so he walked toward the minivan without bothering about the noise his boots made on the dry leaves that covered the ground. The night-vision goggles gave Davari an unfair advantage. The smuggler heard Davari when he was still fifty yards from the minivan; his body language gave it away. The man pulled a gun out of his jacket but kept it close to his leg, muzzle toward the ground. Davari raised his own pistol and aimed it center mass. Even with night-vision goggles, fifty yards was a long shot.
The man whistled, a low-pitched whistle that sounded like wind flowing through the branches. Davari knew right away it was a signal; a challenge to which he didn’t have the answer. The man whistled again, but this time he had his pistol up. His firing stance was good, but his aim was to Davari’s left.
Forty yards. Still too far for a head shot but close enough to hit the man’s center of mass. Since the man’s pistol didn’t have a silencer, Davari couldn’t risk the man firing. Not only would this attract unsolicited attention, the man could get lucky.
Davari stopped and took half a second to adjust his aim. He squeezed the trigger gently, not wanting to jerk it. At this distance, the slightest jolt could cause the bullet to go astray. The pistol burped. A neat hole appeared in the man’s torso, an inch left of his heart. The nine-millimeter round didn’t have remarkable muzzle velocity, and the silencer didn’t help either, so Davari fired two more rounds. Crisp, clean trigger pulls. Two more holes. Tight grouping. The man fell to his knees, and then to his side.
The side door of the minivan opened and two other men got out. These had AK-47s. Davari swore under his breath. He was still thirty yards out. The two men hadn’t heard the shots but had seen their colleague fall. Davari took a knee. He pulled the trigger four times, two shots on each man. His first target was hit twice in the chest and pushed back into the van. The other man dove away to his left and let loose with this AK-47. Davari ducked behind a tree trunk as bullets flew overhead, shredding tree branches and foliage. The noise was deafening and exactly what he had hoped to avoid.
The man fired again and retreated behind the minivan at the same moment Sergeant Mariwala exited the woods right behind him. The minivan concealed from Davari what happened next but it wasn’t hard to imagine Mariwala firing point blank at his target. A moment later, Mariwala emerged from behind the minivan and signaled Davari to join him.
“What do you want to do with them, Colonel?”
Inside the minivan, cramped on the backseat, was a father holding his young son close to his chest. Next to him, the mother. What Davari wanted to do and what he knew he had to do were two completely different things. He wasn’t a monster, but the success of this mission was paramount and trumped his feelings about the poor family that had found itself in this situation through no fault of their own. Plus, there was a chance someone had reported the firefight to the police or border agents. They had to move fast.
“Bring them out.”
While Mariwala forced the family out at gunpoint, Davari scanned the forest. Sergeant Variyan Malegam jogged toward them with the two duffel bags they had left behind.
Davari turned his attention back to the family. Mariwala had lined them up next to the ditch. Davari estimated the boy to be six or seven years old, about the same age as his own son. The father looked at Davari with pleading eyes. “Plea—”
Davari shot him once in the forehead, spraying the gravel road with blood and brain tissue. He didn’t want to listen to the man’s pleas. It was hard enough as it was.
The mother screamed. He shot her in the throat. She collapsed next to her son. Only he remained standing, between his dead parents. No speeches, no warning, just killing two unarmed parents.
Murder.
The boy ran at him, yelling at the top of his lungs. Davari, with tears in his eyes, pointed his pistol at him but couldn’t bring himself to shoot the kid. Allah would never forgive him. Sergeant Mariwala had no such problem. He grabbed the boy from behind and threw him in the ditch.
“Stop!” Davari yelled.
Mariwala pointed his pistol at the child. “Sir?”
“He can’t stop us, Musa,” Davari said. “Someone will find him. It will be daylight soon.”
Mariwala didn’t look convinced, but he was too good a soldier not to obey a direct order.
“Let’s go.”
Davari climbed into the driver’s seat and looked for the keys. They weren’t in the ignition. He combed through the glove compartment and the storage box between the two front seats. Nothing.
He exited the minivan and walked to the first man he had killed. He reached into the dead man’s jacket pockets. His fingers came out sticky with blood, but he had found the key.
<
br /> Thirty minutes later, and without encountering a law enforcement vehicle, they reached Route 16.
“I’ll drive for the first hour. Change, eat and get some rest, Asad. I’ll wake you up in exactly sixty minutes.”
Davari’s thoughts were of the young orphan he had left behind in the ditch. The world was a cruel place and men like him didn’t make it better. They only brought death and sorrow. Look at what he had done to Meir Yatom. He couldn’t even imagine what kind of twisted torture methods General Kharazi would inflict on Yatom. Davari wished Yatom would admit defeat and talk, but from what Davari had witnessed, it wouldn’t be the case. Yatom would fight tooth and nail every step of the way, and get hurt for it. Once Kharazi had extracted everything from him, cracked every bone and carved pieces of flesh from his body, only then would Yatom be allowed to die.
Davari shook his head in disgust and shame. Maybe he should have become a teacher? He had had enough of the killings. This was going to be his last mission.
The small clock embedded in the dashboard told him it was time to wake up Mariwala. His GPS indicated they’d reach their destination in a little less than five and a half hours and that they were still two hundred and ninety miles away from Manhattan. His rendezvous with Captain Piran Mondegari was in seven hours.
That gave him more than enough time to say a prayer for the souls of the parents he had just killed. And for his own too.
CHAPTER 78
IMSI Headquarters, New York
Mike had insisted on questioning Sassani in one of the IMSI conference rooms. It seemed less dramatic than if he had chosen to do it in one of the cells they kept in the basement. No enhanced interrogation techniques would be used, at least for the time being. Mike’s objective was to create a partnership between him and Sassani. It didn’t mean he wasn’t ready to waterboard her if it came to that.
“How do you feel?”
“Have you been shot before?”
“More than once.”
His response appeared to surprise her.
“I’m not a desk jockey,” he added. “Like you, I belong in the field. In fact, we have a lot in common you and I, Tracy.”
“Like what?”
Mike hadn’t originally planned to share much about himself but he needed to establish trust first. Then dominance. Besides, Tracy Sassani would never see the light of day again, except from the small window of her prison cell. She didn’t know that, of course. But Charles Mapother had made his decision. Cooperating with the IMSI was going to save her life, nothing more.
“I used to be a cop. I know the life, the toll it takes on the family.”
“The only true family I ever had was my dad, and he shot me.”
“Do you have siblings?” Mike asked. He knew she didn’t.
“No. My mother died from a car accident when I was young. My father never remarried.”
“Which school did you go to?”
“You really wanna do this?” Sassani exclaimed. It took Mike by surprise.
“Do what?”
“I’m not a rookie, Mike, or whatever your real name is. I’ve been in your chair before. You’re trying to establish the ARC triangle with me,” Sassani said, putting her hands together so her index fingers and thumbs formed a triangle. “Affinity, reality and communication.”
She was right. This was exactly what Mike was hoping to accomplish. The ARC triangle was a technique used to gain the interviewee’s trust. The technique didn’t work all the time but, more often than not, especially when a suspect showed legitimate remorse, it brought the interrogator and the interviewee closer.
“Mike’s my real name,” he said. “What do you suggest?”
“What about I tell you everything I know, right here, right now,” Sassani offered.
“What do you want in exchange?”
“I’m not dumb. I know you’ll send me to a black site and hope no one will ask questions. It might work with terrorists you scoop out of the Middle East or Africa, but it won’t work with me. I’m an NYPD detective, and, in some people’s mind, a true hero. Questions will be raised, and answers expected.”
“That hero thing, it will stop the moment they learn you conspired against the mayor, the same person you swore an oath to protect.”
“And I did!” Sassani shout.
“Bullshit! You didn’t protect him at all.”
“I’m not the one who pulled the trigger.”
“That’s right,” Mike said, sickened by Sassani’s denial and attitude. “Your father did.”
“I—”
“Shut your mouth and listen to me,” Mike said, getting up. He pointed his finger at Sassani. “This is your chance. Don’t miss it.”
........
Anger and self-loathing washed through her. It was worse than the physical agony she was in. Her soul was being pulled in two directions. Whichever way she chose to go, there would be no peace of mind, only pain and frustration. Her father had given her everything, but he had also taken everything. He had shot Mayor Church, the man she was supposed to protect, but also the man she had sworn to kill. Her whole life was a lie.
Why wasn’t she born into a regular middle-class American family? Why did her life have to be so complicated? And what about Chuck? The news of her betrayal would crush him. They’d been together for two years and he had made it clear that she was the one. He was yet to propose to her, but one afternoon, while she was shopping with friends, she had seen him talk to a jeweler at the mall. It didn’t take long to figure out what he was shopping for. Of course, she hadn’t said a word to him, not wanting to ruin it all.
But she did ruin it all.
She’d always known it would end badly. Her father had warned her not to get too close to anyone. It wasn’t as though she had no idea what was coming. She knew she’d be called upon eventually. A few years ago, she’d been proud of who she was. Working hand in hand with her father and being entrusted with his secrets had fueled her desire for revenge. She had been so angry at the world. Her father had made sure of it by feeding her misinformation and fallacious arguments against her adopted country. She could see this now. Yes, injustices had been committed against the Iranian people, but the Americans weren’t the guilty ones; the Iranian government was the culprit. She’d been given the chance to rectify her actions, her sins. It was a bit late in the game—definitely too late for her—but there was a chance. Her father had made a mistake by trusting her. She could still save thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands—of lives. She had that power. She had no choice. She had to tell them about PERIWINKLE.
“You’re right,” she finally said. She had made up her mind. “My life’s over. I know this. I understand it.”
“Good.” Mike’s eyes were cold steel, his mouth fixed in a hard line. The muscles in his jaw twitched. “I’m glad you get it.”
Sassani didn’t mind the sarcasm.
“Are you recording this?”
“We are, yes.”
“Bring in a polygraph.”
“What?” She knew this would startle him.
“Don’t look so surprised. It will make it much easier for all involved. This way you’ll know I’m not lying.”
Mike locked eyes with her. He was trying to figure out if she was being deceitful. She wasn’t, but what else could she do to convince him to play ball with her?
“All right, I’ll prepare the polygraph,” Mike said.
“Good—” She never completed her sentence. The bitterness in her mouth came first, followed half a second later by the actual bile. She threw up on the table—a few drops making it to Mike—and almost choked on her vomit. She felt the wound in her stomach tear open but there was nothing she could do about it. She continued to retch even though there was nothing left in her stomach. A bitter-tasting, filmy mucous ran down her nostrils. Her whole body shook and the
walls began to spin around her. Lisa rushing into the room was the last thing she saw before darkness enveloped her.
CHAPTER 79
New York City, New York
The drive to New York City took a little less time than anticipated. They ditched the minivan at a small airfield close to Waterville—a small town in Maine—and stole a Ford Explorer from the parking lot. They then drove to the supermarket and exchanged the license plate with that of an identical SUV. The only issue after that was a flat tire on I-95 five miles north of Portland, Maine. It took Mariwala and Malegam less than ten minutes to change it while Davari stayed inside the vehicle, weapon ready in case a police officer felt like volunteering his help.
The Manhattan traffic was heavy. Davari had never seen so many taxis in his life. It was pure madness. As much as he hated America, there was something marvelous and free about it.
“We should be close now,” Malegam said, checking the SUV’s navigation system from the front passenger seat.
“We’re still two blocks away, brother,” Mariwala said, his two hands on the wheel.
In the last five hours, Captain Piran Mondegari had forwarded Davari hundreds of pictures and a dozen pages of notes. Davari was combing through them with his laptop and he was impressed with the intelligence Mondegari had provided. Mondegari was an urban reconnaissance specialist. There were not too many of those in the Quds Force and Davari was grateful to have him on his team. Davari had tasked Mondegari with conducting reconnaissance and surveillance operations on their target, a medium-sized building with no windows located at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The building looked like a fortified storage facility, but appearances didn’t mean much.
“There he is,” Malegam said. “At the corner, to your right.”
“He saw us,” confirmed Davari, keeping an eye out for the signal that all was clear. When Mondegari put his Mets baseball cap on, Davari breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, pick him up.”
A Thick Crimson Line (Mike Walton Book 3) Page 21