Retribution (34 page)

It was painful simply to move, to breathe. Nausea swept through his body.

He thought of her running through her first marathon. The pain she had to endure. Not letting the idea of stopping even enter her head. Now he couldn't let the idea of stopping enter his head.

Parker quietly stumbled across the roofless room, watching Yousef and Umarov for any sign of movement. At the door's edge, he wrapped the shawl tightly around his head and across his face, leaving only a small slit for his eyes. He felt the windblown grit strike his face as he stepped out of the doorway.

Visibility was rapidly going to nothing. He turned his head away from the wind and used his hand, running along the mud wall, to guide him. The sand stung his hands. With one on the wall and the other holding his shawl as tightly as possible, he was working his way through the maze when he stopped.

In the rapidly decreasing visibility, headlights bounced up and down as they headed toward the compound.

“
Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar
!” A guard was shouting behind him. In a second, Yousef and Umarov were standing nearby.

“My friend, have you ever seen a core?”

“I'm sorry?” Parker managed.

Yousef turned away and smiled as the Toyota SUV pulled up in front of them. The passengers and driver, all armed with their AK-47s slung over their shoulders, dismounted their trucks and hugged Yousef.

“Where is Zulfiqar?”

“He is with a convoy of warriors behind us. They ran into a Pakistani patrol. With the bombs missing, the army is everywhere. They will be here around dawn.”

“And where is it?”

The driver opened up the latch door on the rear of the SUV. There, in the low light of the Toyota's lamp, was a box marked with the radioactivity warning logo.

Yousef pulled the small metal box toward him and unlocked the latches. He hesitated.

“Is it radioactive?”

A young man, a passenger from the second vehicle, spoke. He wore black-framed glasses and appeared to be more than a mujahideen. Probably a young scientist or technician.

“It is, but as long as you don't touch it, you should be okay.”

Yousef swung the lid up. Inside, surrounded by a black, foam-like material, a bright, metallic gold ball no bigger than an oversized softball glowed in the dim light. It had lines that bisected it, giving it the appearance of having come in several parts.

“Like Allah, this can level their cities.” Yousef turned and spoke the words directly to Parker.

“Isn't there more to it than this?” said Parker.

The young technician answered. “This is the enriched U-235 core. We surround it with a plastic explosive that must be triggered instantly and perfectly.”

It was then—in Yousef 's moment of triumph—that Parker first noticed his face, which, despite the gathering wind and dropping temperature, was bathed in sweat.

Parker's initial mission had been accomplished.

 

 

Again Parker had to wait. It took another hour, but finally the camp had started to quiet down. The wind was howling now. A torn tarp near the entrance to the cave flapped wildly.

As he sat by the fire, Parker rehearsed how he would make his way to the small pickup truck at the far edge of the row of mud huts. It now had an armed guard along with its most valuable cargo inside.

Parker slid up past the little Toyota pickup truck wedged in between the walls of the mud huts. The guard seemed half asleep, on his feet, with his scarf pulled up tightly around his face and head. Parker reached to the ground and picked up a rock the size of a grapefruit but with a sharp, pointed edge. He moved slowly, very slowly, placing each step carefully. The guard didn't move. It would take one stroke at the base of the skull. There could be no mistake. It had to collapse the man instantly.

Only someone this close would have heard the crush of bone as the point struck the skull, breaking it like an eggshell. Parker grabbed the man as he slumped to the ground, pulling the body to a nearby wall and placing it just out of sight on the other side. He slipped into the seat and closed the door very slowly, tugging it with all of his strength so as to close it without making a sound.

The truck was a late-eighties Toyota 4Runner with torn cloth seats and the smell of oil, gunpowder, sweat, and some type of spice, either ginger or cumin. The cab was filled with the haze of dust from the sandstorm, like a fine talcum powder.

He looked back to the cargo bay where the device, in its box, lay like a piece of forgotten luggage.

He felt around the cab in the darkness. The keys were still in the ignition. Between the seats, next to the stick shift, he felt the warm wood and cold metal of an AK-47.

“Okay, here we go.”

Parker began to turn over the key. He knew that as soon as the first sound of an engine began the guards would start the chase and then Umarov and Yousef would follow. But the truck had been separated from the other vehicles, turned around, and was aimed in the right direction, facing downvalley and toward the edge of the finger. They had planned for an escape with their important cargo if necessary.

The key caused the engine to sputter and then start. Parker shifted into gear. The truck rolled forward, into pitch darkness. After several yards, he reluctantly gave into the reality of his surroundings and turned the headlights on. As the light illuminated the blowing sand in front of the truck, it felt as if a red-hot iron had been pressed against his forehead.

Severe meningitis meant severe photosensitivity. The disease had started to infect the sac around the brain and spinal cord. The pain was a stark reminder that soon it would be too late for the antibiotic to save him.

The truck started bouncing along the trail. The lights jumped up and down as he tried to focus on the cart path.

A rifle started to fire behind him. The person was aiming high. They would be wary of hitting the nuclear cargo with a stray bullet, an advantage that Parker hadn't anticipated.

Trying to keep his focus in the dark, in the wind, and with the disease making him more and more ill by the second, Parker followed his sense of direction. He sensed the mass of rock just to his left and no mountain face to his right. It would guide him.

Another set of headlights started to follow.

Rounds began to strike the vehicle. Parker ducked and increased the speed, trying to keep it on the path. Occasionally, a boulder appeared out of the darkness in the center of the path. Parker slammed into one, knocking it off the trail. The jolt made his head feel as if it would split in two. A bullet struck the roof and ricocheted off into the dark, making a brief green-and-yellow glow as it spun into the darkness. Parker tucked lower in the seat, trying to get as much protection as the frame of the truck would provide him.

The trail kept going, refusing to bend around the rocky finger. He knew that once he made that turn he would be crossing over into the adjacent valley. Once he made that turn, he'd be provided a few minutes of shelter from the gunfire. But the trail kept pulling him to the right, away from the ridge.

A third set of truck lights started to bounce its reflections off the rocks. This one had an extra set of lights. Parker suspected the last one would have Yousef and Umarov in it—Yousef's Toyota SUV. The truck in the middle of the chase was a pickup. Looking back, he could see the flash of rifle fire coming from the back of the pickup truck over the front cab.

The second truck seemed to gain on him, coming closer. As when skiing, it was easier in a race to follow the path of someone in front. The one behind could cut the curves shorter. The few extra seconds it took Parker to pick the path were seconds that the following truck didn't need to waste. All the truck driver had to do was follow the rear lights.

 

 

Scott watched the action, helpless.

“How long can the Predator hold this?”

“In these winds?”

The airman kept the Predator's thermal sensor focus on the three moving objects. Occasionally short streaks of lights shot out from the second truck to the first one. Only with the thermal sensor was the Predator able to see anything in the gathering sandstorm.

“She's flying into the wind, and at this headwind she is almost standing still on full power.” The operator seemed to strain with his ship, even though it flew on the other side of a mountain range.

Scott imagined the pilotless aircraft holding itself against the current of the winds above. The engine would be spinning at full speed trying to hold the grade.

“Sir, we need to do something. We only have one missile.”

“What do you suggest?”

The airman lined up the sight on the first vehicle. The Fire button for the Hellfire missile was less than an inch away.

“No. Not that one. That has to be Parker.”

A hand reached over the airman's shoulder and moved the sight to the middle vehicle. The man's wrist showed the scars of a bad burn. Scott turned around to see the senior air officer on duty moving the crosshairs of the sight for the younger man.

“This is the one you want. It will give your man more time and block the last vehicle.”

Scott had met Colonel Danny Prevatt briefly. He said he'd only been on duty here for a week, but as a veteran of hundreds of combat missions he was clearly at home in this environment and a good man to have in command. Prevatt seemed to sense the appropriate target as he moved a stub of cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.

“Go.” Scott sensed it was now or never. Parker wouldn't be there much longer.

Prevatt squeezed the missile trigger.

“Help me keep it on track.” Prevatt continued to press the control against the wind. “It won't help if the wind pushes us into the first one.”

Scott nervously folded his arms.

“Come on, come on.” It seemed that the missile took minutes to travel to its target; but it only could have lasted seconds. A silent flash of light lit the screen.

“Did you see that?” Prevatt let out a whoop. A ball of flames engulfed what was once a pickup truck. “Hit 'em right in the ass.”

CHAPTER 67

 

T
he explosion lifted the rear of Parker's SUV for a second, but it did more than that to the truck in his rearview mirror. The gunmen who had been firing were gone, turned into dust, as if a vengeful god had struck them down from above. The blast pushed Parker into the steering wheel briefly and then threw him back into the seat. The concussion wave shut off the engine.

The detonation lit a fireball that momentarily blinded him. The pain in his head and eyes felt equally blinding.

“Come on, come on.”

Parker blindly found the key and turned it on, but the engine was dead. Keeping the truck coasting straight, he pulled the AK-47 from the passenger seat, then swung the truck off the road and into a scattering of boulders. He slipped out the door, gun in hand, and retrieved the bomb case from the rear of the truck.

Looking back, he heard another rifle shot and saw the shape of Umarov behind the wreckage, cutting around the wreckage efficiently while firing at him. Or, rather, his vehicle. The bullets chunked into the chassis as Parker slipped into the boulder field, turning into the wind, cutting through the rocks.

The light of the explosion had illuminated the rocks for a millisecond, and with the light he realized that he had almost reached the point of the finger of rocks. On foot, he cut across where the road couldn't go. He moved over a slight hill and into the next valley, heading back up into the darkness.

Now he had a ringing in his ears, and his neck felt as stiff as a board. Parker continued to move, placing one foot in front of another, heading up the valley, shivering with the chill of a fever. It was as if he were in the final miles of a marathon, requiring to survive on will more than desire.

Looking back, Parker saw the lights of Yousef's trucks start moving around the point, about to make the turn up into the second valley.

Parker turned back again, looking up into the valley.

He stood out in the open on what little he could make of a goat path that cut through the rocks. It was important that he stood exposed. He needed Furlong and his team to see the thermal outline of a single man. Parker kept moving uphill, up valley.

The truck's lights started to follow.

Parker feared that when the tent's signal flashed, Umarov would see it as well.

He kept moving forward but still no tent. Finally, he turned, looking back downvalley, and fired several rounds from the AK-47 toward the headlights.

He glanced back upvalley into the darkness.

And suddenly he saw it.

Furlong, with his heat scope, could have seen the bullets coming from his rifle, then realized where Parker must be on foot.

The tent flashed for one second, but in the darkness it was a clear beacon.

 

 

“Did you see that?” Yousef pointed up into the darkness. “There are others.”

Umarov looked toward the flash of light. “More than just one man on the run, eh?” He reached for some extra clips of ammunition for his AK-47, checked his pistol, and chambered a round.

Liaquat Anis, sitting in the back of the truck, leaned forward and spoke to Umarov in the front. “He must have been the man they saw with Knez in London.”

Abu Umarov stared forward through the windshield, in silence, absorbing what was said. This man was the killer of his Knez. It was a pledge of the
Crni Labudovi
to avenge the death of a Black Swan.

“Why was Knez in London?” Yousef turned to Liaquat.

“I didn't want to say anything before because I knew how important Zabara was to you, but . . .”

“Speak!”

“The Bosnians had said that Zabara had changed. They suspected he had become a traitor. The
Crni Labudovi
had sent Knez to check out the rumors.”

Yousef turned and struck Liaquat with the full force of his hand.

“Why did you not tell me? Why didn't you say anything?”

“I was going to, but when we flew together, when I talked to him, I thought it was a lie. I knew how important this was.” Liaquat slumped down with his head in his hands.

“Anis, can you reach Zulfiqar?”

“I'll try.”

“Tell him that we may have an American special-operations group in this valley and we need his warriors. Tell him to muster everyone!”

Yousef looked flushed and was sweating in the cold wind. “Are you well, brother?”

Yousef waved off the doctor's concern. “It must be my son's sickness. I have a fever. It doesn't matter. I will hunt this infidel and cut his throat. Now, you go! Tell him where we are!”

“I will get Zulfiqar here.”

“Guide him through this storm!”

They briefly stopped the truck, and Liaquat jumped out.

“We will follow the trail. Hurry!”

The fourth passenger in the truck was the young warrior from Indonesia, Malik Mahmud. Useless now, still in shock from seeing his friends blown into pieces and onto the windshield of the SUV that had followed theirs.

“I go from here on foot.” Abu Umarov opened the door to the truck and also jumped out. “You keep following the trail with your lights on.”

Umarov disappeared into the darkness and blinding wind.

Yousef saw Liaquat running, in the glow of the brake lights of the truck, back toward the cave and help.

“Mahmud, come up front here and make sure you have enough ammunition.”

“Yes, Yousef.”

“We need to find Sadik Zabara—and kill him.”