One Rough Man (44 page)

Regardless, he still had a mission to accomplish. He gave the order for the team in Oslo to redirect to Tuzla at their earliest opportunity. He then turned to his Rolodex and compiled a list of names for a backup team. There was no telling where this was going to lead. He needed the flexibility to launch from inside the European continent while maintaining a reserve. He would fly with the backup team, directly coordinating the mission on the ground. It was becoming impossible to command and control the complex twists of the operation from five thousand miles away, and getting out of the country right now had a certain appeal. Not to mention the chance of getting out of the office and into the hunt.

I WAITED FOR JENNIFER to finish brushing her teeth before continuing the debriefing. When she returned to the bedroom, she looked a little bit like her normal self, the fear of her close call receding.

“Are you burned? Did Carlos suspect anything? Do anything when he saw you?”

“No, not really. I think I’m fine there. I’m pretty sure he thought I was a local. I didn’t say anything, and neither did he, so I didn’t give him any reason to think I was anything but a Bosnian.”

“Good. I think we drive on with the plan. We wait for him to check his e-mail tomorrow. While he’s in the café, I’ll crack into his room and see if I can spot the device, or come up with anything else that screams WMD. Run me through what you saw for security. What were the door locks like, did you see any cameras, was there a lot of traffic, basically anything you can think of that might interfere with me getting in.”

Jennifer sat for a moment, collecting her thoughts. When she was ready, she gave me a fairly detailed description of everything she had seen. I expected her to have tunnel vision, focusing on her survival after the contact with Carlos like most civilians would have, but she was able to clearly describe the exact number of doors in the hallway, the type of lock, the direction the doors opened, and even give a fairly good description of the old man she had inadvertently run into, to include what she could see of the layout of his room. I had gotten less information from trained operators in the past.

“So, you’re positive you didn’t see any cameras? Anything being fed to the front desk?”

“No. There’s nothing like that. I’m sure of it. The hotel’s fairly rundown. The only thing I saw was an old guy at the front desk, and he didn’t even look up when I entered.”

“You’re positive that there was only one lock, and it was like ours here in the hotel room?

“Well, I’m positive that’s true about the guy’s room at the end of the hall. I can’t say for sure about Carlos’s room, since he was standing in front of his door when I went by, but if all of the rooms are the same, then it has a lever, and a keyhole above the lever. That’s it.”

“And it looked just like our door lock?”

She pointed at our hotel room door. “Down to the engraving on the plate.”

“Okay. I think I can get in with our key.”

“How? Just because it looks like our lock doesn’t mean our key will fit. I mean, really, I’ve seen enough
Magnum PI
episodes to know that won’t work.”

“If our key will fit into Carlos’s keyhole, it will work. It won’t open it, you’re right, but I’m going to take our key and make a ‘bump key.’ If I do it right, we should walk right in.” I grinned. “Trust me.”

W
e attempted to have a normal evening at a local restaurant. Jennifer was subdued throughout the meal and I could tell that something was eating at her. When we got back to the hotel, she asked, “What are we going to do if you don’t find any WMD in his room?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it, and don’t have an answer. Let’s take it one step at a time. Right now, I just want to build the bump key and go to sleep. We’re both exhausted, and it might be the only rest we get for a while.”

Jennifer nodded absently. “Yeah, I could use the sleep.”

“Look, quit worrying. We can’t do anything right now and it’ll just keep you awake all night.”

“I know, I know, but ... Pike, I’m scared. I really thought I was going to die today. I have never been so terrified. This guy plans to kill a lot of people. I don’t think I realized what that meant until I thought he was going to kill me.”

Here it comes. She’s seen the elephant. Need to give her some confidence.
“Quit it. Fear isn’t bad. You just have to manage it, like you did today. This guy is going to
try
to kill a lot of people. We’re going to stop it. Right?”

She stared at me, like she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how. I’d seen it before. Soldiers who had a near-death experience and wanted to talk, but didn’t know what to say. Her next question threw me completely off.

“What was Heather like?”

I sat in silence for a second or two, wondering where this was going.

“I ... I can’t sum that up in a sentence. Why’d you ask?”

She didn’t answer the question. Didn’t appear to even hear it. “You know what I was thinking about at the end of that hall? I mean besides the scared shitless feeling that I was going to die? I thought that if Carlos killed me it would destroy you.”

“Come on. That’s not going to happen. You’re not going to die and I’m not going to self-destruct.”

She ignored me. “I felt so selfish. I had run into the hotel because we needed to get the information and it was
my
life. But it’s more than my life.”

“Jennifer, it’s never just your life. There’s always someone else who’ll be hurt. That’s just the way it is.”

She was staring at me now, making me uncomfortable. The twinge had come back with strength unlike anything I had felt since I had lost Heather. It was almost unbearable, a confusing mishmash of emotions that made me want to flee the room.
Stop it. Remember the mission. Focus.

She continued. “I understand that my death would affect others. I mean, my death would also crush my mother, but I didn’t think about her. This was different. The fear of dying wasn’t as bad as the fear of causing you pain.”

Where is this going?
I had intended to give her a little support, a shot of confidence, like I had done many times to other soldiers in the past, but I was no longer on familiar ground. “Well, I’m glad I’m good for something. If pity gets the mission done, then I guess I’m a pathetic loser who’ll fall apart at the drop of a hat. Can we talk about something else?”

“That’s not what I meant. I ... I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow and I just wanted you to know....”

“What?”

She leaned in and kissed me.

“You’re a good man. Much better than you give yourself credit for. Maybe better than anyone I’ve ever met. You didn’t kill your family. You should let it go.”

I sat still, frozen by her actions.

Jennifer laughed. “Wow. I finally made you speechless. I should have done that days ago.”

“Jennifer ... I ... uh ...”

She put a finger to my lips. “Shhh. I’m not looking for any deep thoughts. I just wanted to say that ... in case ... you know.”

I remained silent for a second, not wanting to dwell on tomorrow’s potential consequences.

“You asked about Heather,” I said. “She was ... a lot like you.”

The words seemed to bring a sense of calm to her. She put her hand over mine.

“Thank you. I think that’s the best compliment you could ever give.”

“You’re welcome. Now, enough of the soul-searching.” I stood up, locking my churning emotions away and trying to concentrate on the mission. “We need to get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow.”

She remained seated, saying nothing, but with a different glint in her eyes.

“What?”

“I ... I’d rather you didn’t sleep on the floor tonight. Is that all right?”

The question took a moment to sink in. When it did, it separated my confusing emotions like oil and water.
Jesus, you want to
. The thought made me feel like a traitor, disgusting me to my core.
I can’t sleep around on Heather
. The notion was ridiculous, but overwhelmingly there nonetheless.
Shit. What do I say now?

Jennifer had just been through a harrowing event, and had now opened herself up in the most vulnerable way possible. The close call itself may have been to blame. I didn’t want to hurt her. I sat down again, taking her hand.

“Jennifer ... I ... I ... can’t do that....”

She blinked and looked at the floor. When she looked back at me, she was smiling, like I had confirmed something.

“I know. I just meant you could use a good night’s sleep. Off of the floor. The bed’s big enough.”

We both knew what she really meant, but somehow my answer had avoided giving her pain. I smiled back, relieved. No matter what happened tomorrow, tonight I had done something right.

A
t seven A.M. Bakr got out of bed and completed sunrise prayers, wishing for the thousandth time that he were allowed the small dignity of a prayer rug as part of his cover.

At seven-thirty, he walked to the end of the hall for his shower. He fidgeted in his room for another forty-five minutes, playing with the remote detonator and going through linkup options with Sayyidd in his mind. At eight forty-five, he packed up the weapon. Stepping onto the street, he looked left and right, then proceeded at a slow pace to the Internet café so as to arrive after it had opened.

 

 

JENNIFER SAT IN HER PEASANT’S DRESSwith a different colored scarf in place on her head. The scent of vomit still occasionally wafted from her dress like the odor of a dead animal in the attic, the stench floating about with no clear source no matter how hard you walked around sniffing the room. She had done her best to clean the dress but had missed a spot somewhere.

She’d awakened before their alarm went off, the room artificially dark due to the heavy drapes, the corners showing the feeble light of dawn creeping in. Raised on an elbow, gazing at Pike’s slumbering form, she could barely pick out his features.
This isn’t fair. Why are we all alone out here? Why can’t we just go home and forget about terrorists and WMD? Let someone else stop him.
She had lain in bed feeling a sense of impending doom, as if she had been convicted at trial and today was the day she reported to jail.

That feeling had remained throughout the morning, and persisted still. Sitting in the back of the coffee shop, she jumped when her cell phone rang, spilling her cup of coffee halfway to her mouth. She heard two simple sentences.

“He’s on the move. He’s going slow, so it’ll probably be five minutes before you see him.”

She acknowledged the call and hung up, the sense of dread building in her gut. Four minutes later she saw Carlos down the street, walking at a leisurely pace toward the café. It would take him a couple more minutes to get there, but that would only be more time for Pike inside the hotel. She picked up her phone and dialed, wishing it were still yesterday, not wanting to set things in motion.

 

 

OUTSIDE OF BAKR’S HOTEL, one of Lucas’s team members from Norway sat looking at a map, trying to determine if he was in the location dictated by the computer plot of the beacon. He glanced up to get his bearings on the street, looked back at his map, then did a double take when he saw Pike exit a Pajero SUV fifteen feet to his front.

He had pulled into the parking spot five minutes before merely to pinpoint his location, one of several sites being reconnoitered by Mason’s team based on the trail left by Pike’s pager. This was supposed to be just a familiarization day, necking down possible locations and getting a feel for the area. Fumbling with his cell phone, he calmed down enough to dial, ducking to prevent Pike from seeing him.

“Mason? Yeah, I’ve got Pike. He’s fucking right in front of me. The girl’s not with him. He just went into a hotel.”

He paused, listening. “I don’t know if he’s staying here or not, but if you want him, I need to get the team here ASAP. I’m not going to try take him out on my own. I haven’t seen the girl, but let’s face it, he’s the threat. Get rid of him, and she’ll be easy.”

He listened a few more seconds. “Yeah, I get that we can’t track the girl, but this guy’s been pretty damn dangerous from the beginning. You sure you want to attempt a capture?”

Hearing Mason’s reasoning, he relented. “Okay, I can do that. If you get a team here, I should be able to close on him fast enough to prevent him from doing anything.”

He listened a moment.

“If he gives me any trouble, I’ll smoke him right here. If not, he can tell us where to find the girl. I don’t recommend going in after him. We can ambush him when he comes out. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll both come out.”

 

 

I ENTERED THE HOTEL LIKE I BELONGED THERE, carrying the bump key and a small mallet I had purchased the day before. I moved straight to the stairwell, the distance and direction exactly as described by Jennifer. Exiting the third floor, I paused in front of Carlos’s door. I strained my ears, listening for any movement behind it or from the rooms down the hall. Hearing none, I placed the key in the lock. It slid in easily. I moved it forward, feeling the clicks of the pin tumblers through the key. When I went past the last tumbler, I pulled the key back out until it clicked once. Looking left and right, ensuring I was alone, I raised the mallet and gave the key a sharp rap, applying torque as soon as the key seated past the pins. The lock broke free, the cylinder turning. I rotated the key and turned the lever, pushing the door. It didn’t budge. I paused a half second and pushed again. The door was still locked. Puzzled, feeling the press of time, my instinct was to simply kick in the door.
Hold on. Solve the problem.
I went through possibilities in my mind. I remembered that European locks sometimes go two full rotations to open. I repeated the procedure with the bump key, feeling a sense of relief when the lock cylinder turned again, releasing the door. I entered the room.