Hide and Seek (29 page)

In the Dante-like smoke-shrouded night, J. J. led his half of the team toward the truck and prayed they would get there in time.

ALIKI URALE TROTTED AHEAD
of Mike Nagano and Pete Rasor. His size was an advantage in hand-to-hand situations but running remained a challenge. During basic training and later Ranger training, he always suffered more than his companions on the long runs and hikes. He finished, usually just well enough to stay in the program. He excelled in everything else, but carting 280 pounds of muscled Samoan took work, especially if there was a pack on his back.

Their exit was smooth, waiting until they heard two
clicks
on their radios, telling them Boss and the others were down and safe. If gunfire erupted, Aliki, Mike, and Pete were to pin down the group in the street, taking out every man with a gun if they could. Those two
clicks
on the radio were sweet sounds. Now if he could only get rid of the constant ringing in his ears.

At every intersection, they stopped and peered around corners, moving only if they felt they were unobserved.

For a moment, Aliki thought they would be able to make the distance without being seen. But then two men with Chinese-made Type 56 assault rifles, a knockoff of the AK-47, both raised their weapons and one of them said something. Aliki couldn’t hear it. He didn’t care. He and Mike brought both men down with short bursts from their weapons.

Aliki was in a hurry. He didn’t bother to see if either remained alive. It didn’t matter. They would bleed to death soon enough.

The smoky air made his lungs ache and the pounding of his boots on pavement made his knees feel as if they were splintering into tiny, sharp shards. He pressed on. That’s what he always did. Press on.

ONCE, IN AN UNGUARDED
moment, J. J.’s previous leader quipped, “All leadership decisions are meant to be second-guessed.” J. J. didn’t give Eric Moyer’s words much thought then, but now he not only understood the comment, he felt the weight of it. Ordering his men off the roof meant several things—life and death things. First, it meant risking discovery by an overwhelming and heavily armed force; second, it meant surrendering the high ground, and putting them on the same footing as the enemy; third, it meant—if discovered—the end of the mission. Failing in his first action as Boss wouldn’t look good in his personnel jacket.

Two things pushed him to make the call: one, to do nothing could mean the capture or death of Amelia Lennon and the president’s daughter—something else that wouldn’t look good on his record; second, risk was his business and the business of his team. Better they take the greater risk than the women he was tasked to save.

The armed mob was behind them and Aliki just reported their location. They were two streets over and half a klick ahead. For a big man, he made good time. That or he was making Pete carry him.

Voices. Shouts.

J. J. slowed his jog down the alley. Jose and Crispin did the same. They reached the next intersection and peeked around the corner of what J. J. took to be some kind of delicatessen. A block to the east stood three men forming a half-circle around a mother and—he strained to see details through the NVGs—two children. The children were the same height. Both girls. Both about six years old. Twins. In the street, three feet from the curb, rested a sedan that looked older than J. J.

One of the men had the woman pinned to the wall, his body pressed against her.

“Boss? We’re burning time.”

“Take a look, Doc.” J. J. pulled back from the corner.

Jose took a quick look then pulled back. He said something in Spanish that sounded like English words J. J. tried to keep out of his vocabulary. “That won’t do. No, sir. That won’t do by a long shot.”

J. J. could see the anger in Jose’s eyes, the balaclava might conceal the man’s face, but not the tension and barely subdued fury. He looked at the situation again. The man was rubbing a hand on the woman’s face then moved to her shoulder.

Crispin took a turn looking. It took only a second. “We gotta do it, Boss. I don’t want to live with that scene playing in my head.”

“It will only take a couple of minutes.” Jose bounced on the balls of his feet.

“We move quietly and fast. Don’t shoot them unless they draw down on you.”

“You sure you want us to hold back, Boss?” Jose said.

He heard laughter from the men that chilled his spine. “No.” One more second passed. “Doc, you take the man on the left; Hawkeye, you got the dude on the right. The man with the woman is mine. Go.”

J. J. pushed his NVGs up on the hinge that fixed them to his helmet. They moved from the alley into the street in a half crouch. Stealth was the order of the moment and they moved silently, aided by the distraction the men had with their partner and the woman. His hand moved to her blouse.

Every nerve in J. J. body came to life, fueled by an anger he seldom knew.

It took less than twenty strides for the team to reach the attackers. It took ten seconds to put an end to their activity. J. J. hung his M4 behind him on its sling, seized the man by the back of the collar with his left hand and the belt with his right. He pulled. He lifted. The man’s feet came off the sidewalk. J. J. replaced them with the attacker’s face. He then dropped to a knee, landing hard on the man’s backbone. In a fluid motion, J. J. had his service handgun out of the holster and pressed into the base of the man’s skull. It took all of J. J.’s willpower not to tap the trigger.

A glance to the left showed Jose raising his M4 and delivering the butt of the weapon to the man’s face. J. J. guessed Doc was aiming for the man’s nose but he missed, catching him square in his open mouth. Blood ran. J. J. didn’t want to know what the crunching sound meant.

A glance right showed Crispin could work more than a joystick. Hawkeye’s booted foot caught the third attacker in the coccyx. The man arched his back, hands reaching for the sensitive, injured area then turned, his face showing pain and fury. Crispin thrust the barrel of his weapon into the man’s chest so hard that the sternum made an audible crunch. He crumpled like an empty sack.

It took only moments to check the men for weapons. J. J. allowed his man up but kept his handgun aimed between his eyes. The man wet himself. J. J. pointed down the street. The two men ran, one with soggy pants, one with missing teeth. Crispin’s target remained unconscious, maybe dead.

Not wanting to speak, an act that might give away their nationality, J. J. pointed at Jose then to the car. Crispin went with him.

The tires on the car looked sound; the engine continued to hum. The only thing out of order was the windshield, which had fractured into a spiderweb of fragments held together by the safety glass. J. J. wanted to ask what happened but knew nothing of the language the woman might speak. That left him nothing but guesswork, and best guess was the men threw something at the car, shattering the windscreen and making it impossible to see. The woman pulled over, the worst thing she could do.

Jose removed his Benchmade Nimravus knife and drove its four-inch blade through the shattered bits of glass and the plastic laminate that was holding it together. He repeated the action until he had a hole large enough to put his hand through. He began pulling the damaged windshield out in pieces. Crispin caught on and stepped in to help.

J. J. turned to the woman. She looked thirty-five or so. Tears covered her cheeks. He could see a bruise forming on each check and J. J. wished he’d dumped the man harder. His eyes moved to the children who huddled next to their mother. They were twins with the same light hair and the same terror draped on their faces. Mother pulled them close. Their expressions reminded J. J. of how he must appear to them: armed to the teeth, helmet, face covered in a black mask. J. J. wanted to pat the children on the head but figured they had been manhandled enough by strange men.

Taking a step back, J. J. gave a gentleman’s bow and motioned to the car. The woman moved from the wall where she had been pinned and took a trepidation-filled step. J. J. moved away, put enough distance between them to help her feel safe. Crispin and Jose did the same.

She put the car in gear. J. J. waved. The children waved back. He wondered if his kids would be that polite and that brave.

Jose stepped to J. J.’s side. “We did a good thing, Boss.”

“Yes, yes we did.”

Jose chuckled. “Did you see our baby? I’m gonna have to be careful how much I tease him. Wow, what a move.”

“I’m not the baby of the group,” Crispin said.

Jose ignored him. “I think we’ll have to give him a new nick. Maybe Hawkeye 2.0.”

“I like it,” J. J. said.

“I don’t,” Crispin said, but his voice carried a tone of good humor.

“Let’s go. There’s more bad guy butt to kick.”

BISHKEK CHIEF OF POLICE
Emil Abirov arrived at the front gate of the Transit Center at Manas Air Base ahead of the approaching crowd, but not by much. He traveled in the police helicopter which landed on the commercial side of the airport, an area separate from the portion used by the American military. He arrived after giving difficult advice and making hard decisions.

His resources were limited and the danger greater than he could recall, even worse than the 2010 riots. Crowds were moving on key government facilities, the American Embassy, the White House, and several key business centers. Already several police cars were set on fire and at least three military vehicles. Eight policemen were wounded, two of them seriously, and Abirov had no reason to believe the worst had passed.

The smoke-darkened sky made Bishkek seem more like purgatory, and he feared purgatory would become hell. Even here, north of Bishkek, the air stunk of smoke. He wondered how many toxins he had inhaled over the last few hours.

A police cruiser waited for him near the helipad to take him around to the American-leased portion of the airport to the access road used to enter the military compound. Abirov was in a bind, stuck, as his grandparents used to say, between the devil and the deep blue sea. On the one hand a city to protect, but the airport also fell under his jurisdiction. No matter where he was, he felt he should be somewhere else. When at the White House, he wanted to be on the streets with his men; when on the streets with his men, he wanted to be overseeing the protection of the Manas International Airport. His forces were spread too thin. He did not have enough men to secure all the areas in need of police protection.

The army was proving useful but they were tasked with protecting hospitals, key government buildings, and now the airport. It was made clear that only a few resources would be used to protect the American portion of the base. It was a political decision no doubt influenced by Prime Minister Dootkasy. The thought of the man turned Abirov’s already gymnastic stomach.

Abirov slipped into the front seat of the police car. Jantoro Kalyev, assistant chief of police, was behind the wheel. The dome light revealed a man who had aged five years since breakfast. Jantoro had been an officer for twenty-five years and was two years from retirement. The years of police work sped his aging. His head seemed too thin, his hair too white, his eyebrows too unruly.

“Could you see the crowds from the air?” Jantoro sounded grim.

“Yes, I estimate they are twenty minutes away. Two groups. I estimate fifteen hundred. Maybe more.”

“Will we be getting more men from the army?”

“No. Not on this side of the airport. Everything around the airport is secure. We are to maintain the crowd a hundred meters from the Americans.”

The car moved down a side street near one of the runways. Abirov could see armed American soldiers forming a perimeter around the military aircraft.

Jantoro shook his head. “We do not have the manpower for that. A crowd the size you mentioned will easily run over us. Does the order not to shoot still hold?”

“It does. There are still those who think police and military opened fire on civilians in 2010. The president wishes to avoid that.”

“Would the president like to come here and help us?”

“That’s enough. We do as we’re told.”