The Forgotten Soldier: A Pike Logan Thriller (13 page)

24

G
uy glanced back and saw the two rushing down the stairs, the shallow glow of the mercury lamps making them seem simian, their glide anything but innocent.

He darted into the crowd on the street, putting innocents between him and his predators. Walking quickly, he went through his options and decided that getting to Syntagma Square was his best alternative. They were pipe-swingers, no doubt, but they weren’t
official
muscle. They had to worry about the authorities just as he did, so wouldn’t attempt to harm him outright in the crowds. If he stuck to the main thoroughfares and stayed ahead of them, before they could present a threat, he could get out.

He wound down the hill, skipping past bars and restaurants, losing altitude and gaining confidence. He reached a T intersection, momentarily lost but knowing that downhill was safety. To his left he saw two policemen on BMW motorcycles, sitting on their saddles and smoking cigarettes, the deserted cobblestone road looking as if it had been built by Socrates. Just beyond them was an alley between apartments, which went sharply downhill.

Perfect
. They wouldn’t do anything in the presence of the police, and might decide not even to follow him down the alley. He drew abreast, and one policeman sat upright. Guy felt a stab of adrenaline
but kept his pace. The other turned toward him, talking into a radio. The first drew his weapon and shouted in Greek.

Jesus. They co-opted the police? How did they manage that?

He took off at a dead sprint, hearing the crack of a round just as he hit the narrow defilade leading downhill. He heard the motorcycles rev and knew he was in trouble. Not only from the motorcycles but from the radios the policemen held, and their knowledge of the terrain. And the fact that someone had called them to begin with.

He ran down the hill through the flickering moonlight and sparse vapor bulbs, realizing he’d channelized himself. He saw a splash of light on the cobblestones in front of him, his shadow in the middle, and knew the bikes were now behind him. He started looking for something to stop them. He saw nothing.

He reached another street and went right, running up the asphalt until another alley opened on the left, going straight downhill almost as steep as a staircase. He could see the lights of the main shopping area below and knew he was close to the endless traffic and taxicabs. Close to freedom.

He bounded down the narrow lane, moving so quickly that he could barely maintain his balance, seeing the flat ground of a street below, a market full of pedestrians beyond. He heard the motorcycles behind him, their headlights bouncing over him, and doubled his pace. He was within thirty meters of breaking into the crowds when three men appeared out of the moonlight, running up the alley straight at him.

Nothing remained but to fight.

They came at him as a pack, intent on preventing him from reaching the safety of the street, each dependent on the courage of the man to his left or right.

Guy had no such crutch.

The first reached him and swung a section of bicycle chain at his
head. Guy caught the movement and ducked under, looping his arm over the man’s elbow and torquing his right leg behind the man’s knee. He swept his leg back and slammed him into the ground with his shoulder, hard enough to cause a dull thump from the skull. Not even registering the victory, he whipped backward with his left leg, catching the next assailant in the gut as he continued forward.

Guy heard the air leave the man’s lungs as he turned to the final target, but he was moving too slow. The attacker swung a wicked fish priest, a short club with the head encased in metal, hammering him in the shoulder. The steel hit the brachial nerve near his collarbone, rendering his left side momentarily useless. Guy dropped to his knees, a panic for survival flooding him as the second attacker recovered from the kick.

The men leapt at him, Guy seeing both flash in a strobe effect of the bouncing headlights from the oncoming bikes, like something from a seventies disco. The man with the club swung, and Guy rolled to the right, putting his back to the rough-hewn stone of the alley and hearing the metal strike rock, seeing it cast sparks. He protected his left and lashed out with his right, throwing a cross with his full weight behind it. The man’s head whipped sideways, slamming into the rock wall. He crumpled to the ground as the final man approached.

Guy saw the motorcycles gingerly bouncing down the narrow lane, getting closer, the lights bobbing as if they were on stalks. He said, “I got no beef with you. Let me go. Tell Nikos this is a mistake.”

The man drew up and Guy saw his size for the first time. Easily over six feet, with a wide girth and a bearded, acne-scarred face. In broken English, he pointed at the man with the fractured skull and said, “You missed the chance.”

Hands to his front, the motorcycles still approaching, Guy’s face curled into a death mask. “I don’t have time for this shit. Bring it, you fuck.”

The man did and, in the instant before he died, realized that size
alone had nothing to do with the fight. He swung a bar-fight roundhouse, and Guy ducked under, pounding the man’s right kidney with two deep strikes as he rotated behind him. The man screamed and Guy grabbed his hair, jerking him off balance. The target flailed his arms and tumbled backward like a felled tree. Guy dropped to a knee, controlling the head as the body fell, and the target’s neck landed just above Guy’s kneecap. There was a crack, and the man was dead, his own weight having done the damage.

Guy let the man roll off his knee just as the first motorcycle reached him, the officer shouting from his bike but unable to engage with his weapon without losing control. Guy leapt down the alley, straight into the flea markets surrounding the Acropolis grounds.

Ignoring the stares from the myriad of tourists, he kept running until his lungs felt on fire, trying to remember the map he’d studied earlier. Trying to remember where Syntagma Square was, now that he was on level ground and free.

He stayed near Acropolis Park, cutting through musicians playing for euros and couples looking for romance, finally hitting the iron fence that surrounded the Acropolis itself. The sight brought him renewed courage, as he knew there were taxis at the entrance.

He saw the Acropolis Museum and realized he was close. Just a couple hundred meters to freedom. He cut into a path in the trees and picked up the pace, the fence to his right and the pedestrian street to his left. Ahead, he saw the circle for the entrance, people still milling about even at this hour. He saw the line of taxis and darted out of the trees just as two police motorcycles hit the circle from the city side, tires squealing as they hammered the brakes. They were followed by two more from his rear, the original hunters, who hit him with their lights.

He heard the shouts, the ones from the rear redirecting the new pair to his presence. With no other alternative, he turned into the park, running blindly, desperate to separate himself from the advantage of their motorcycles.

He heard the rev of engines behind him and felt the fear. The park was wide open, threaded with roads, and it was empty. He knew eventually he’d hit the same eight-foot iron fence and wouldn’t be able to get over it before they hit him. Even if he did, he would be in the Acropolis. He would be nothing more than a corralled animal, lashing out until he felt the spear.

He ran on, the motorcycles’ lights bouncing around him, his panic building. To his front, a hill of granite appeared. A giant, imposing knoll of stone with an iron staircase and some plaque that he wouldn’t read even if he could in the dark. All he knew was that it was a break from the motorcycles.

He leapt to the stairs just as the motorcycles reached him, dropping their bikes and giving chase on foot. He sprinted up, finding the crest and running to the far side, the men no more than ten seconds behind him.

He reached a cliff, the grassy earth sloping fifty feet below.

He cursed and did a slow turn, searching for options. There were none. He looked across the cliff and saw a park below, full of archeological treasures, and recognized the Agora, Athens’s ancient city center. On the far side was a cut for a metro train, a slice in the earth, and beyond was a street full of vendors.

Escape
.

He heard the men scrambling up the rock face and decided. He’d either die from the drop or get away.

He lowered himself flat and slid off the side, seeking footing way too fast for safety. He used roots and outcroppings to make it fifteen feet down before his luck ran out. He felt the slide and tried to stop, but it did no good. He saw the police above him, shining lights in his eyes and shouting, and he screamed, falling into the void.

He hit the ground hard, bouncing once, then rolled down the slope, coming to a stop in a field of grass. He lay for a moment, unsure if he was broken, the lights of the police far above. He rose up,
the adrenaline rocking his body, and found he was stable. Beat to hell, but no permanent damage. He took off through the field, the glow of flashlights growing fainter behind him, the police nowhere near insane enough to try to follow.

He came to the cut for the train tracks and leapt down, scrambling up the other side and reaching the pedestrian walkway, seeing tourists drinking beer in outdoor cafés. He climbed the fence, ignoring the shouts and iPhones pointed at him as he came over. He took the first street he could find, weaving deeper into the heart of the tourist-trap markets and restaurants, looking for a place to stop. To assess what had happened.

The man, Nikos, belonged to the Greek Mafia, and they were known as the Godfathers of the Night because of their stranglehold on nightclubs in Athens, so any stop in such a place was basically suicide, but he needed to get off the street. To quit running once he had his break in contact. With the advantage of radios, moving now was the killer. He needed to hide until they grew tired of looking.

He hit a small alley, busting through the tattoo parlors and teenagers, and saw a sign ahead.

Salvation.

It read
JAMES JOYCE IRISH PUB
. A place where he could sit forever, and one definitely outside the neon and black lights of Mafia-controlled nightclubs.

He slid inside, pushing through the crowd of expats and taking a seat at the very back, his eye to the door. A waitress came over and, with a wonderfully safe Irish accent, said, “Poor thing, you look tuckered.”

Guy gave her a crooked grin and said, “Yeah, sightseeing’s a bitch. Can I get a Guinness?”

She left, and he rapidly assessed what he knew. Trained to thrive in chaos, the last few minutes of adrenaline faded like tide from a beach. No longer worthy of reflection.

He’d made some significant enemies inside Athens, but he still had a mission. He withdrew his recording device and put one earbud in, listening to the conversation before Nikos had arrived. He could make out little, the device nowhere near good enough to penetrate the wind and ambient noise of the other patrons. He strained to understand the mumbling about yachts, keys, and meetings, none of which did any good to focus his efforts.

But he did hear one thing.

Heraklion, Crete.

25

S
ecretary of State Jonathan Billings entered his hard car still inside the US Embassy compound in Athens, his six-man detail from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security doing a final check before the two-vehicle convoy rolled back to the hotel.

He’d had trouble staying focused on the endless briefings but gave the ambassador his praise and well wishes on the progress made on various fronts. Now, preparing to leave, he was running through his head the excuses he’d use to ditch his security detail. He didn’t really think he needed them, but then again, someone
had
launched a rocket-propelled grenade at the front of the embassy here in 2007. Maybe ditching them wasn’t the best choice, but he had to for his next meeting. Because no matter what those asshole hawks in the Oversight Council thought, he was going to warn Haider al-Attiya that a lunatic was after him.

Three days ago, he’d been roundly shut down with his accusations that the Taskforce was operating unilaterally inside the United States, assassinating Qatari citizens based on nothing but a bloodied target package from Afghanistan. One day later, Kurt had called an emergency meeting, something that rarely occurred, which caused all thirteen members to show. He’d stated that they had no proof of Taskforce involvement in Key West, but that he was missing a Taskforce
member. A man had basically gone AWOL, and—conveniently, Billings thought—it was the brother of the soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Billings knew the whole damn thing was nothing but a show designed to cover up extralegal Taskforce operations—if there even was such a thing, given their extralegal existence to begin with—and had demanded that the family be informed.

Kurt had balked, saying he had no proof and was “taking steps to confirm or deny the situation.”

Billings had said, “What does that mean? ‘Taking steps’? Either the guy’s on the loose or he’s not.”

“I’ve detailed Pike Logan to find him. To bring him in. My bet is he’s on a bender somewhere in the United States. He lost Decoy, then his brother, and it took a toll. I saw it but didn’t think he wouldn’t go to the funeral. Pike will find him.”

“Pike? Are you serious? You think he’ll bring him in? Far from it. If anything, that psycho will give him pointers.”

President Warren interceded at that point, saying, “Calm down, John. Kurt’s doing what he can, and airing your personal grievances about individual Taskforce members isn’t helping. Kurt informs us of the status, but the tactical decisions are his.”

The secretary of defense cut in, “And he did save the damn pope last year. Give him a break.”

Billings said, “Okay. Fine. But what about the Qatari guys? What about Haider al-Attiya?”

President Warren said, “What about them?”

“They need to be warned.” He turned to Kerry Bostwick, the director of the CIA, and said, “Don’t you have a protocol for sources or assets when you come across a death threat? Don’t you have to warn them?”

Kerry shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. “This isn’t the CIA. This is the Taskforce, and we have the means to control the outcome.”

Billings looked at the president and said, “That’s not what I asked. Sir . . .”

President Warren said, “Kerry, what’s the protocol?”

Kerry placed his elbows on the table and rubbed his hands together, then said, “Okay, yes. If we come across a threat to a source, regardless of the source’s orientation or cooperation, we warn them. But that’s not this.”

Billings said, “That’s exactly this. The only difference is that it’s not threat-stream reporting. It’s one of our own guys.”

Kurt interjected, “We don’t know that. Give Pike a chance.”

Billings cut him off. “Bullshit we don’t know. We might not
wish
to know, but this is an unmitigated disaster. Haider is the one helping me with . . . that thing in Afghanistan. Haider’s the member of the QIA that’s willing to invest in Greece. We lose him—at our own hands—and it will be the worst foreign policy disaster in recent memory. And make no mistake, there have been some disasters.”

President Warren said, “No warning. We handle this on our own. Let the Taskforce work it.”

“Sir, I think we need to look at this holistically. The Taskforce has gone rogue. We are on the verge of bringing down this whole administration.”

He paused and went from man to man, looking every member of the Oversight Council in the eye.

“Everyone in this room is looking at a jail cell. That’s a given, but we still have our duty to honor what we know to those threatened. It’s unconscionable not to do so. At least let him prepare. Increase his own security.”

And for the first time, the words were said aloud, thrown into the daylight from the dark. The true dilemma tossed into the room.

They had created a unique organization to resolve imminent threats, but in so doing, they had thrown out what made the United States what it was. Thrown out the oversight and the second-guessing.
Thrown out transparency and democracy for the greater good. It had sounded responsible after 9/11, given the threat. Something that was needed, even if the US Constitution wouldn’t allow it.

The Taskforce had worked like a well-oiled machine for years, proving its worth, eliminating one threat after another. A benign beast growing in strength, it had always done what was asked by the Council. But now it was off the rails, the beast looking for blood outside of the masters. A man recruited, trained, and equipped for missions at the national level, someone told repeatedly to ignore the laws of the land for the greater good, was now doing exactly what he’d been taught.

Every person in the room was under the knife.

President Warren said, “Kurt, thoughts?”

“Give Pike a chance. He’ll bring him in. There’s no reason to panic here.”

Billings said, “I’m not panicking. I’m being prudent. Maybe we should also alert the FBI, get him in the system, use the CIA, or whatever else we can do to get his name out there.”

Kurt glared and said, “We can’t do that without the very compromise you fear. Anyway, I don’t need someone else to put down a horse that belongs to me.”

Billings rolled his eyes and said, “Sir, really? Now we’re worried about egos?”

Warren said, “Kurt’s right. No reason for extreme measures. No warning. Let it run its course.”

Billings bit his lip but knew what he was going to do. He had a conscience, unlike the men around the table. Now, driving out of the embassy compound in Greece, he was about to step across the line. Put his own conscience in front of his obligations.

He drew strength from the example of Edward Snowden, another man who had bucked what the traditional establishment had said was right. He owed it to himself to do the same.

The small motorcade left the main road and rounded the snakelike streets, going through alleys and neighborhoods to the Athenaeum InterContinental. The hotel was not, to put it mildly, in the best part of town, and he would have stayed at his habitual haunt, the Hotel Grande Bretagne—where everyone who was anyone stayed—but Haider was booked at the InterContinental, and doing a meeting inside the hotel was the only way to avoid his security detail following him like a piece of gum picked up by his shoe.

They rounded the corner, and Billings saw the internal hotel security, aware of his presence and hoping to make a permanent impression. The two cars entered the small drive and he waited, one man exiting and opening his door, the rest fanning out. He shook the hand of the poor bellman, the guy terrified of screwing up.

They entered the expansive lobby, he in a bubble of security, his executive assistant one step behind, and everyone else staring at who had arrived. The hotel staff blocked off the elevator access, allowing him to ride alone, his detail talking among themselves in their radios.

Ridiculous
.

He hated the security detail. It was exactly what wasn’t needed as a diplomat. How could he encourage democracy and human rights when armed thugs surrounded him everywhere he went?

The elevator opened and his security entered first, pushing the button to his floor. Billings sank against the railing, running through what he would say to Haider. The elevator stopped and his assistant said, “Sir, did you want to go over the minutes for tomorrow’s meeting now?”

“No, Leslie, we can do that later. Jet lag’s hitting me. I’ll call you for dinner.” She smiled and went the opposite way from him down the hall, no security with her. Minutes later, he was at his suite, the room cleared by his detail. He went to his computer, pretending to work, giving them time to exit.

After the door had been closed for a minute or two, he dialed his
phone and received a room number. He packed up his laptop and exited. The lone security man outside his door was startled, saying, “Sir, I thought you were in for the afternoon.”

He raised his wrist to talk into the radio, and Billings said, “I am, I am. I’m just headed to the executive lounge to get a bottle of water.”

“Sir, I can get that for you.”

“I want to get it myself,” Billings snapped. “Stay here. I’ll be fine. I don’t need a guard dog to go to the damn lounge.”

The man shuffled his feet but did as he was told. Billings turned without another word and went to the elevators. He rode down two floors, then exited.

He found the room number and softly knocked. A man he didn’t recognize opened the door, dressed smartly in a pinstriped suit with a well-groomed beard shaved close to his face. Billings thought he was nothing but a manservant for Haider—one of the many anyone important from Qatar would use—and came close to barging in as he was accustomed to do in his position, but the man looked him full in the eye. And Billings saw a little crazy leaking out. He waited outside.

The man said, “Sir, I am Khalid. Haider is waiting in the other room.”