Taking Fire (5 page)

8

As the old Toyota roared down the cratered streets, turning, braking, slowing, then racing several times, Bobby could no longer get a feel for what direction they were going. It felt like a good half hour before the driver finally stopped, but they could be miles or mere blocks from where he'd been picked up.

The engine died with a cough; two truck doors opened and then slammed closed. Someone jerked the hood off his head. It took a few seconds to get his eyes to focus, and when he did, the tailgate was already down, and he was the only one left in the truck.

He took it as a good sign that they'd gotten rid of the hood and hadn't bound his wrists, but he was a long way from confident that he'd live to see the sunrise. When you played games with men like al-Attar, if you got too confident, you soon got dead.

He sucked in the fresh air, said, “My compliments to the driver,” then jumped out of the truck and tried to get his bearings. It was still dark, and very few streetlights burned in this neighborhood. He took in everything he could see as fast as he could and spotted a blue banner hanging from a wall outside the entrance to a market. What market, he had no clue.

“Follow,” Thug One ordered. To make certain that he did, he tapped him none too gently with the business end of the AK. They walked only a couple of blocks, then ducked into a narrow alley before stopping at a walled adobe compound. One of the gunmen pounded on the door. Not long after, a peephole opened. An exchange of words in Arabic followed, before a man opened the door and they all trooped inside.

The new guy led them into the house and a central receiving area that was spacious and well lit, with wide-open windows and several worn but comfortable-looking chairs. Wood bookshelves ran along one wall and overflowed with books and antiques. The Hamas leader clearly liked his creature comforts.

“Spread,” the gunman ordered.

Knowing the drill, Bobby planted his feet wide and held his hands in the air while the man searched him and then held out his hand.

“Phone.”

Having no choice, Bobby handed over his one and only lifeline.

A hand gripped his shoulder and pushed. “Sit.”

Bobby sank into the nearest chair.

And then al-Attar entered the room, welcomed him as though he were a long-lost friend, and, playing the gracious host, served him tea.

Bobby smiled and fought the urge to spit in his eye.

*   *   *

His only play was to punt and hope the team could somehow find him. But the odds of that happening were zilch, and it was looking as if al-Attar and his men were not going to be taken into custody tonight. That was the bad news. That and the fact that he'd finally gotten into the den, but he had no idea where it was located.

The good news was, it didn't appear he was going to die tonight.

He drank the strong, bitter tea and made nice while twenty of al-Attar's top lieutenants gathered in the receiving room, listening quietly as al-Attar and Bobby discussed a deal for the new intel that the Hamas leader stated was his best information yet.

After al-Attar named his price, Bobby said, “That's a lot of money, my friend.”

“Have I not always delivered what I promised?” Al-Attar lounged regally in his chair, a master accustomed to hard-core negotiating.

“Just as I have always held up my end of the bargain,” Bobby said, maintaining his own casual façade. “And yet you found it necessary to have your men hijack me at gunpoint and hood me.”

Al-Attar lifted a hand, swatting the issue away. “I promised you a meeting in my home. I did not promise the circumstances of your arrival.”

Because al-Attar smiled, Bobby smiled. “We'll have to get more specific the next time.”

“More tea?” his host asked, dodging the subject.

“I need to get back to base before they know I'm gone.” Bobby stood.

“And my price?” his host wanted to know.

“I'll see what I can do.”

“Do not keep me waiting long. There are others who would also pay for the service I provide.”

It was a bluff, and Bobby knew it. He didn't call al-Attar on it, though, and risk angering him. “How will I contact you?”

It was an old game between them.

Al-Attar nodded to the guy who had taken Bobby's phone. He reached into his robes and handed it to him.

Relieved to have the cell phone back, Bobby pocketed it quickly before al-Attar could change his mind and take it back again.

Al-Attar smiled. “I will contact you. Do not wor—”

A blinding flash of light exploded inside the room. A series of loud bangs and choking smoke followed.

“Sonofabitch,” Bobby swore, and ducked for cover. The cavalry had arrived after all, and they'd brought their flashbangs with them.

He must have missed a memo, though, because he didn't remember the part about the shemaghs; the black hoods with narrow slits for eyes and mouth, however, were a nice twist. And they infiltrated the house exactly as they had drilled. Fast and decisive. Excellent. He didn't know exactly how they'd found him; he only cared that they had.

“Hands in the air! Drop your weapons!” The guys yelled in Arabic and English as they stormed through the room in choreographed precision, employing the “slicing the pie” method to clear the room, then immobilizing their targets quickly and efficiently by shoving rifle barrels to the backs of their heads. It took only minutes, and they'd flex-cuffed the lot of them with their hands behind their backs.

“Hey. Take it easy,” Bobby grumbled when he was hauled roughly to his feet and shoved against a wall. “I'm one of the good guys, remember?”

He got a hard push and ducked—just not fast enough. Instead of cracking open his skull, a rifle butt grazed his jaw.

Pain exploded inside his mouth, along with the taste of blood.

That was when he realized it wasn't the cavalry after all—and for the second time that night, he figured he was a dead man walking.

They wore Afghan military uniforms, and they very well could be military, but then why had they shouted their orders in Arabic and English but not Pashtu? Something was off here, but whoever they were, they knew what they were doing as they roughly lined al-Attar and his men up against the wall with Bobby.

He stood beside al-Attar, staring at the business ends of twenty automatic rifles, waiting for the bullets to rip through him.

Al-Attar wasn't going down without a fight. “Whatever it is you want, you need only ask.”

The leader of the group walked up in front of him, hauled back, and rammed the stock of his rifle into al-Attar's face.

He screamed in pain and dropped to his knees, his nose bleeding heavily.

Bobby measured his breath and kept his mouth shut, looking for a way out. Seeing nothing.

The leader walked down the line of men, studying their faces one at a time through the slits in his face mask. When he stopped in front of Bobby, cold black eyes seemed to cut straight through him before he turned away and nodded to his men.

Two of them broke rank; each one grabbed an arm and dragged Bobby toward the door.

Shit. He knew where this was going. He was an American in Kabul. They were taking him outside to execute him.

Now, though, at least he had a glimmer of hope. His odds had just dropped from twenty-to-one to two-to-one.

He knew exactly how he'd take them down—­except, as one held the rifle dead center at his heart, the other stepped behind him and cut off his flex cuffs. Then they shoved him out into the alley and slammed the door closed behind him.

What the hell?

He didn't know what had just happened or why he'd been released, but he wasn't going to hang around and ask questions. Adrenaline pumped so hard his chest ached. He drew several deep breaths, cleared his head, and ran like hell.

When he'd put several blocks behind him, he ducked into an alley, bent over, and puked his guts out. Then he fumbled around for his phone and hit speed dial.

“Taggart, where the hell are you?”

It was Bridgedale himself, manning the SAT phone for the operation.

“Just listen.” He quickly told Bridgedale what had happened.

“Tell us where you are.”

“If I knew, I'd already have told you.”

He stuck his head out of the alley, saw that the streets were still empty, and took off running again until he hit a cross street.

“Taggart, you still there?”

“Hold on.” He caught his breath, then gave Bridgedale the names of the two intersecting streets.

In the background, he heard Bridgedale shout at Leavens to plug them into their on-board nav system. Fargis had top-of-the-line electronics that would pinpoint his location and map the most direct route.

“Get your ass out of the street, and find concealment,” Bridgedale barked. “We're looking at twenty minutes, but we're on our way.”

Bobby had started running toward a deep, shadowed doorway before Bridgedale broke their connection. He ducked into the cover of the wide, tall threshold and made himself small. No one would spot him unless they walked right past him, and even then, he figured he had a fifty-fifty shot that they wouldn't see him if he held still as stone.

His adrenaline finally dropped to the manageable zone. A good thing and a bad thing. Good because his heartbeat and respiration had slowed to those of a Sunday jogger instead of a sprinter hitting the finish line. Bad because without the adrenaline rush, his jaw hurt like hell, and so did the leg he'd broken in the chopper crash several years ago.

He was pretty well wired again, though, when the team's twenty-minute ETA turned into twenty-five and then thirty. He had a sudden craving for a ­cigarette—and he'd never been a smoker.

Finally, he heard the growl of the up-armored Humvees roaring toward him.

The first Hummer braked to a stop, and Bobby sprinted toward it, barely hauling himself inside before it took off again.

Bridgedale looked him over as Bobby gripped the M4 rifle Gomez handed him. “You sure you're up for action?”

“When am I not?” He got Leavens's attention and gave him directions to al-Attar's nest from there. “Look for a market flying a blue banner.”

Then he sat back, breathed deep, and hoped they would get to al-Attar in time. He'd worked the bastard for months, worked him hard, taken a helluva lot of chances. He wanted to close the deal. He did not want some team of ninja assholes doing it for him. He wanted al-Attar in custody, and he wanted to be the one who put him there. Wanted him to know that he'd been played and who had played him.

“Got a bad feeling we've already lost him,” Bridgedale said into the darkness of the Hummer.

“Which is going to royally screw up my day,” Bobby muttered, and cupped a palm to his aching jaw. “Whoever those guys are, they weren't playing patty-cake.”

A few moments later, within three blocks of the compound, a monster flash of light electrified the sky ahead of them. The driver slammed on the brakes and asked God to save him.

The blast that followed rocked the Humvee, as pieces of adobe and wood and glass rained down on them like Vesuvius spitting fiery rocks over Pompeii.

“Sonofabitch!” Bobby pounded his fist on the back of the shotgun seat. “Son. Of. A. Bitch,” he repeated in total defeat, as smoke and flames boiled up from the ground where al-Attar's compound used to be.

The blast had destroyed any opportunity to gather intelligence for analysis—documents, hard drives, whatever. Bridgedale ordered the small convoy to turn around and head back toward base. There was no point in going farther.

Whatever was left of al-Attar would have to be scooped up with a shovel, along with all the other debris.

9

“Better have Hutchinson take a look at your jaw,” Bridgedale advised Bobby after they'd all finished the debriefing.

“I'm fine,” Bobby assured him. “Just need some shut-eye.” His ears would be ringing for a week from the explosion.

He sat in the chair after everyone else had filed out of the room.

“You got something you need to say?” Bridgedale asked, watching Bobby carefully.

He hoped not. He hoped to hell he had nothing to say that his boss would want to hear.

“About who did it? Or why they let you go?” Bridgedale pushed.

They'd already hashed this over at the debriefing, and, like a lot of bombings that took place in Afghanistan, in the end all they had was speculation.

Taliban warlords bent on retribution for al-Attar's betrayal? Al-Qaeda unhappy when they'd found out he was helping the Americans? Al-Attar's competition wanting him out of the picture so they could get a bigger cut and wanting to keep Bobby alive so they could make deals with him?

But none of those explanations washed. He was still stuck with the disaster's biggest damn question: Why had they let him go?

He looked up at Bridgedale, who held his gaze, and finally shook his head.

“You have no ideas?”

“Not one.”

Then he walked out of the briefing room, hoping he hadn't just lied. Because if what he feared was true, he wasn't certain he could live with the guilt.

*   *   *

One of the guys gave him a ride to Talia's hotel. The sun was almost up, and a few merchants were starting to set up their shops on the sidewalk by the time he got there. His eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep; his jaw throbbed. Above all, a tight knot of dread clutched his chest as he sprinted up the stairs to Talia's room.

For a long moment, he stood outside her door, hoping like hell he was wrong. He really didn't want to believe the worst. Not of her, and sure as hell not of himself—that she'd taken him for a fool.

Finally, he opened the door and felt the last of his hope die, along with a piece of his heart. The room was empty. Stone cold empty.

Jaw hardening, his emotions turning to ice, he strode past the bed and wrenched open the bathroom door. There was nothing—not a toothbrush, not a comb.

He did the same to the wardrobe, swinging the door wide, only to find more nothing.

No laptop. No camera. No ugly shirts.

No note explaining where she was. That she'd been unexpectedly called away to cover a bigger story somewhere else.

No note telling him she was sorry.

Because, of course, she wasn't.

She'd gotten exactly what she'd wanted—and he'd gotten played. It took everything he had just to stand there and keep breathing.

He looked around the room again, making sure he hadn't missed anything, some small
something
to tell him she'd be back. But all he saw were memories—of her naked body stretched out beneath him on the bed, her skin so soft, her hair a wild mane, her voice with his name on her lips.

He hadn't dreamed her response. He hadn't dreamed how good they were together.

His cell phone rang, and, like a fool, he felt a rush of hope and yanked it out of his pocket. Then he saw the message and felt gut-shot. It wasn't Talia with explanations and innocence. It was a reminder he'd sent to himself days ago about a briefing scheduled for this morning.

Fuck!
He threw the phone against the wall, and it fell to the floor in pieces. And then his day hit rock-fucking-bottom.

Disbelieving, he leaned over and picked up a piece of metal about the size of the battery. An RFID tag. He'd planted plenty of them over the years while tracking bad guys.

And it had fallen out of his phone.

He closed his eyes, and his head fell back in absolute misery.
Honey trap.

Because of his stupidity, not only was al-Attar dead, but so was all the information the intelligence community could have gathered from him. Important information. Lifesaving information.

He thought back to all the signs that he'd missed.

He'd seen her passport, and she maintained dual citizenship with the United States and Israel.

Al-Attar was a known Hamas leader with a price on his head in Israel.

Now al-Attar was dead.

And Talia was gone.

It felt as if she'd hammered a stake clean through his heart. Talia Levine was dead to him now.

As dead as he felt inside.