One Rough Man (40 page)

I returned the handshake, feeling a little embarrassed at my outbursts earlier. “Sorry about yelling at you. I understand your position. I won’t let you down.”

I held his hand a little longer than necessary and locked eyes with him.

“Don’t let me down either.”

I
nside his Crystal City office, Lucas closed out the tracking Web site in disgust. It had grown dark outside, and he wondered if he had missed the opportunity to take out his prey. The pager beacon had gone to Arlington National Cemetery, then had driven aimlessly about for the next couple of hours. It had finally stopped at the Dulles Fixed Base Operations center, where it had remained ever since. That meant one thing: the beacon, and presumably whoever was carrying it, had flown somewhere. Due to the length of time it had remained stationary, that flight was taking some time, either going across the country or out of it.

He picked up the phone to relay the bad news. When Standish answered, Lucas went secure and got right to the point.

“We missed both targets. The beacon signal itself has become stationary at Dulles, which leaves me to believe the targets are airborne moving to another location. Do you wish to proceed?”

For a moment he heard nothing but breathing on the other end, disgusting him.
Weasel can’t make a decision. He’d last about eight seconds in combat.

“Well, yes, I guess so,” Standish said. “We need to get it done.”

“Even if it means going to a foreign country? You willing to risk that?”

“Is that what they’re doing?”

“I won’t know until the beacon lands, but the last report was over four hours ago, so they’re flying a long ways. What do you want me to do?”

“What have you done so far?”

Lucas proceeded to tell him about the lead they had gleaned from Ethan’s phone call the night before, clinically using terms such as
asset information
and
neutralizing further exposure.
Before he could continue with the morning’s events, Standish put two and two together and interrupted the conversation.

“Whoa! Wait a minute! Don’t tell me you’re involved in that multiple murder in Herndon. Lucas—”

“Yeah, that was me.”

“Jesus Christ! They’re calling it a Charles Manson copycat killing, for God’s sake! They think a psycho gang’s on the loose. Are you insane? Four people were fucking slaughtered. Tortured to death.”

Lucas wanted to reach through the phone and rip out Standish’s heart.
You coward. Just like everyone else. Want to get the job done, but don’t have the balls for the work
.

“Listen to me, you self-righteous blowhard, you gave me my mission parameters and I’m still within them. I’m accomplishing the fucking mission. You don’t like how I’m doing it, then you should’ve specified some restrictions beforehand. Now shut the fuck up and let me finish my situation report.”

 

 

ON THE OTHER END OF THE LINE, Standish felt sick to his stomach. Not because of the deaths in Herndon, but because of the possible exposure to himself. He was barely listening to the rest of Lucas’s situation report, frantically going through all of the ties that connected them, when something Lucas said clicked, bringing him back into the conversation.

“... So we were forced to exfil without terminating either target. From there we regrouped, waiting on contact from the asset’s phone you gave me ...”

“Wait ... wait. Are you telling me you’re also responsible for the shootout across from the Arlington Courthouse? You actually opened fire on a bunch of civilians?”

This time Lucas didn’t shout. He spoke in a calm, deliberate manner. Standish recoiled from the venom he felt coming from the phone.

“I’ll say this one more time. You gave me my parameters and my mission. I’m executing. You told me to ensure the hit wasn’t traced to you, and
that’s
why we did the drive-by. I’m following your lead. Don’t question my methods again.”

“Bullshit. You’ve
exceeded
my parameters. I told you that collateral damage had to be five or less. You killed four at the house in Herndon, then shot at least two at the courthouse, maybe more. You’re
outside
my guidance, and my guidance stands. Is that understood?”

“Standish ... there are two targets. A collateral damage of five per. That means I still have four to work with. Anyway, two of my guys are in the hospital because of your target, so I really don’t give a shit about your damn
guidance
anymore. It’s getting personal.”

Standish couldn’t believe how quickly the violence had escalated
.
He thought about telling Lucas to stand down but was afraid of his response.
He might ignore me altogether.

“Okay, okay. I can see the miscommunication, but I’m the one in charge. I’m still the one funding this. You want to get him, the only way you’ll do it is with my money—and that comes with my oversight. Got it?” He waited on a response, the silence making him wonder if he’d already lost control.

“All right,” Lucas answered, “as long as we understand each other.”

“Continue with your report.”

After Lucas had finished, Standish gave him the go-ahead to execute—even on foreign soil—but told him that no more collateral damage was to be tolerated. He hung up the phone, wondering if Lucas would bother to listen to him.
I’m going to have to do something about him when this is over. Too much exposure. Too much of a threat
.

A
fter a solid day and night of heading inexorably eastward, Bakr exited the train station at Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Weary down to his bones, he gathered his meager possessions and walked to the first taxi he could find. Speaking in halting English, Bakr asked for a cheap hotel somewhere downtown. The driver held up a finger, saying he knew just the place.

Driving east, toward the heart of downtown, the taxi traveled about two miles before stopping in front of a nondescript four-story concrete building with a Cyrillic sign in the front.

“Here. They treat you well here,” he said.

Bakr thanked him and was surprised when the man butchered the phrase
Allahu Akhbar
in return.

Bakr stared at the man, smelling of liquor and smoking a cigarette, thinking surely he was not one of the faithful.

“Are you a man of the book?”

“Yes, yes.”

Bakr said,
“Allahu Akhbar,”
and exited the cab. He knew that the horrific civil war that had occurred in Bosnia during the 1990s had been primarily between the Serbian Christian population and the Bosniak Muslim population, but had never stopped to think that a “Muslim” in Bosnia was as far removed from his version of Islam as the far enemy itself.

Bakr entered the lobby of the hotel, seeing an establishment dating back possibly to the 1940s, solidly built of quarry stone, decorated with heavy drapes and dreary colors. The long registration desk, complete with old-fashioned boxes mounted on the wall behind for the guest to place his or her key, was manned by a thin, acerbic-looking man wearing the ubiquitous black leather jacket found all over Bosnia. Bakr checked into his room, happy to see that, although old, it was clean and tidy. The primary concern he had was that the door had a shabby, cheap lock, without a secondary locking mechanism. That would force him to take the weapon everywhere he went.

His first order of business was to check the prearranged e-mail account with Sayyidd. He had made initial contact twenty-four hours ago after leaving the ferry in Kiel, Germany, but that e-mail had been disappointing, with Sayyidd saying he was still waiting on a message from Walid. On the plus side, at least he appeared to be following instructions. The message referenced Fallujah and said that he had checked out of the Muslim section and moved closer to the city center.

Getting directions from the front desk, he found an Internet café four blocks away. Logging on to the account known only to him and Sayyidd, he was relieved to see the reference to Fallujah, then excited when he saw that Walid had sent the instructions for the next meet. It would occur at one o’clock today at a coffee shop in Oslo. Sayyidd ended by saying he would relay what had occurred later on, as soon as he was done.

Bakr leaned back in his chair, satisfied that their planning was still on track. His shift to Bosnia might have been unwarranted, but it was still the prudent thing to have done. It might also have removed one burden from Walid’s back, as he thought he could get explosives and detonating material from a contact inside this country. He wasn’t convinced that Sayyidd had the expertise to ensure the correct materials were taken from Walid, and there was no way they would return to Norway to remedy any mistakes. Better for him to see if he could gather the materials here.

While still a fighter in Iraq, he had been given the name of a person who was very active helping out Chechen rebels in their fight against the Russian infidels. All he knew was his name, Juka Merdanovic, and that he lived somewhere around Tuzla. He had never met the man but had been told he wouldn’t turn away a Muslim in need.

A
s I was pulling into my fourth parking spot, my phone rang.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Pike, he’s waiting at a bus stop. I think he’s going to get on. What should I do?”

Shit.
I couldn’t believe I had failed to plan for a Metro or bus scenario. That was absolutely what would be expected, since the terrorists more than likely didn’t have a car.
Chalk one up to fatigue. You’d better pull your head out of your ass, or you’re going to fail
. I told her to hang on a second, rapidly running through courses of action in my mind.

“All right, board the bus with him. When you see him get up to leave, give me a call. You stay on the bus. Getting on with him can be a coincidence. Getting off is asking to get burned. You exit at the next stop and head back to the one where he got off. I’ll call you when I either find out where he’s going, or I lose him.”

“Okay. I can do that. Sorry I didn’t see this coming and call earlier.”

I smiled at her taking the blame. “
I’m
the one who should have seen this coming. Don’t worry about it. We’re still good to go.”

We had landed in Oslo a couple of hours ago and had immediately checked Jennifer’s e-mail account for a message from the Taskforce. Sure enough, the terrorists had received another message directing a meeting at a coffee shop at one o’clock in the city center, which didn’t give us a lot of time to set up. We located the shop with only thirty minutes to spare. I’d put Jennifer inside, with me outside as a spotter, since I was the only one who knew what they looked like. Of course, that meant I couldn’t conduct the actual surveillance because they would spot me.

When Jennifer found out she’d be in the coffee shop alone, she seemed to realize for the first time this was for real. I had reassured her, reminding her of the surveillance classes I’d given on the flight over, stressing again that it wasn’t some arcane skill reserved for spies, but just common sense. She didn’t seem to buy it, but she’d exited the car. At precisely one o’clock I’d recognized the shorter of the two guys who’d mugged me in Guatemala. I’d almost missed him, because I was looking for a pair. His friend was nowhere in sight, which could mean he was conducting countersurveillance like I had in the mall. No way to tell and nothing I could do about it anyway. I called Jennifer and triggered the surveillance.

After the meeting broke up, Jennifer had managed to track him for five blocks to the bus station, but she was now out of play. That was going to leave me doing the dismounted work, which would be hard to do without getting burned. I pulled out, driving slowly until I saw the bus ahead of me. Picking up the pace, I trailed the bus to the next stop, seeing both Jennifer and the terrorist waiting to board. Four stops later, she called.

“He’s standing up. He’s getting off.”

“Got it. You go to the next stop and head back here.”

I immediately scanned for a parking spot, whipping the car around and cramming it into a space barely large enough to hold a moped. I waited for the terrorist to commit to a direction before falling in behind him. The sidewalks in this area were much less congested than in the city center, with only a few couples using them. I knew that if he turned around there was no way he would miss me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I stayed as far back as I dared, praying the terrorist had no reason to feel he was being followed and would walk straight to his destination.

Luckily, that’s exactly what he did. Striding with a purpose and ignoring his immediate surroundings, he entered a five-story building. I gave him a few minutes, then approached.

It was a youth hostel, a cheap hotel catering to college students and wandering backpackers. It was clean and neat, although a little threadbare, with a throng of young men and women coming and going.

I went across the street to a small restaurant/bar, took a table in the corner that had a view of the entrance to the hostel, and gave Jennifer a call, telling her where to find me.

 

 

SAYYIDD FLEW UP THESTAIRSof the youth hostel at a rapid clip, anxious to e-mail Bakr the good news. Walid had not only told him he could get “proof” of Iranian complicity for the WMD attack, along with the necessary explosive material, but he could get them into Israel proper with little trouble at all. In fact, he wanted Sayyidd to come with him tomorrow to the hinterlands of Norway to meet the man who would facilitate their travel. Unfortunately, the location of the facilitator was outside the footprint of the satellites for the Thrane M4 phone. While they covered a broad swath of the world, it wasn’t 100 percent coverage. It meant he would be out of e-mail contact with Bakr for forty-eight hours, but he felt that was of little consequence.