The Forgotten Soldier: A Pike Logan Thriller (43 page)

86

K
halid saw a parking garage built into the side of a hill, an office building made of glass attached to it, and said, “Pull in there, get off the street.”

Sabour made the turn, going underground into the darkness.

Things had happened so quickly that Khalid needed time to think. To determine his next course of action. The drive out of the cottage had been a blur of gunfire and fear, Sabour plowing through the men at the gate as Khalid fired out the window, Billings cowering in the front seat in abject terror.

He remembered only short glimpses, like the flash of a camera. The security man slamming into the car frame as the bullets stitched his chest, the brass from his MP7 ricocheting inside the car as they raced out, the look of shock on the men’s faces at the gate.

Only one fired back, until someone screamed at him to stop, and then they were through, turning onto the main road hard enough to throw Khalid against the opposite seat. They’d crossed the Glomma River and entered the peninsula of Fredrikstad city, Sabour staying on Highway 110 until he swung through a traffic circle and began driving on surface streets.

Khalid had swiveled his head back and forth, but nobody seemed to be paying them any mind. Even so, when the vehicle disappeared
into the underground garage, Khalid felt relief in the darkness. Sabour killed the engine without pulling into a spot.

He said, “What now?”

Khalid wiped the sweat from his brow and said, “We go to the peace meetings. We complete the mission.”

Billings sat up and spoke for the first time. “Khalid. You cannot succeed. You didn’t kill everyone, so they’ll be coming. They will have shut down the meetings. Give yourself up.”

Khalid cuffed him on the back of the head with the barrel of the weapon. “Shut up. You will take us to the meeting. Right now.”

Billings cradled his head, saying, “Why? Why must you do this? What possible good will it do?”

“You will never understand. Take me to the meeting.”

“No.”

Khalid raised his weapon, jamming the barrel into Billings’s mouth. “Killing you won’t be harming the peace process, but it will be close enough.”

He saw Billings’s phone flash on his hip, the vibrating buzz filling the interior. Nobody moved. Khalid said, “Don’t you dare answer that.”

It finished, leaving them in silence. Khalid said, “I’m going to count to five. You nod when you want me to stop. If I reach five, I’m blowing the back of your head out.”

Billings closed his eyes. Khalid said, “One,” punctuating it by jabbing the barrel and tearing Billings’s lip. “Two.”

Billings nodded.

Khalid withdrew the barrel. “Good choice.” He handed his smartphone to Sabour and said, “Pull up Google Maps, then hand the phone to the secretary.”

Billings said, “I’ll take you there. I just said I would.”

“No. You’ll tag the spot on the map, then we’ll drive there together.”

Resigned, Billings took the phone. He marked a location and handed it back. Khalid said, “A museum? The talks are happening in a museum?”

“Yes. It’s government controlled, and on a fortified island. You won’t get in.”

“We will with you.” He leaned into the back and withdrew the hidden CZ 75, handing it to Sabour. “Switch seats. Billings drives now.”

They did so and Khalid held up the phone. “If you deviate from the route, I’ll kill you.”

He saw a single headlight beam flash against the wall and said, “When this motorcycle passes, we go.”

It took a moment before it registered that the motorcycle was coming down the exit ramp, on the opposite side of the garage from the entrance they’d used.

87

I
studied the satellite image on the tablet, the rest of the team forming a circle around me in the van, all of us waiting on a complete triangulation from the Rock Star bird. If it proved correct, the vehicle was in a parking garage just off a street called St. Croix Gate in the heart of downtown Fredrikstad.

We’d left behind the snow-covered fields and copses of barren trees in the countryside for the stone and steel of the Norwegian town.

Initially, we knew only two things: The vehicle was a Range Rover, and it had taken a right onto Highway 110 headed toward the Glomma River. I’d loaded everyone up, but intended to learn much more than that fact.

We hadn’t found Billings’s cell phone in the house, so I was assuming it was still on his person. I’d first called Billings direct and had gotten nothing but voice mail. I’d then called Blaine, demanding he launch my bird and load Billings’s cell phone markers into the electronic surveillance package in the nose. Believe it or not, initially I’d received pushback—because Secretary Billings was a United States citizen, and the Taskforce charter was forbidden from tracking AMCITS or otherwise interfering in their electronic communication unless they had been designated a global terrorist.

It was absolutely ridiculous. My first thought, given what Billings
had done, was to push for a designation, but I knew that was going nowhere. The Oversight Council rapidly cleared up the idiocy, but I was going to make a pilot suffer over the delay.

The bird made one pass over the city and pinged on the phone downtown, with a circle of probable error of about seven hundred meters. We moved in that direction. By the time we’d gotten to the city center, he’d pinged a second time on a different trajectory and necked it down to the parking garage—but still with a hundred-meter circle of probable error. That could put Billings inside the office building next door, or in a patch of scrub across the street near the river, but I was planning against him being in the garage.

From the satellite photo, it had a separate entrance and exit, with the entrance on our street and the exit a block up to the north. Street view showed it to be at most two levels, and from the width, it wouldn’t take a whole lot to search.

First, I wanted to isolate our target. Both the entrance and exit had drop bars, but they wouldn’t stop my motorcycle posse. I decided to send them to the exit, basically having them come in the wrong way to prevent us from missing our target if they drove out while we came in. Then, Knuckles and I would enter normally while Jennifer would park her van near the entrance, sealing it off after we went down, protecting us from discovery.

I needed to collapse on the crisis site with overwhelming force, which would necessitate positively identifying the vehicle without arousing suspicion. A tough call, considering at least one of the men in the vehicle knew both Knuckles and me by sight, and I wasn’t sure whether Brett and Nick had also been compromised. I hoped the helmets they wore would camouflage our intent.

I gave out the orders and asked for questions. Nick said, “What do you want us to do if we see the vehicle and can assault? Call first or seize the initiative?”

I said, “Do what you think is right. The priority here is rescuing
Secretary Billings. If you get down there and can do it, execute. If not, give me a call.”

Brett said, “Rules of engagement?”

“Hostile force. Both Arabs are designated enemy combatants. Don’t worry about imminent threat to you. If you get one in your sights and his back is turned, drop him. I don’t care if you see a weapon or not.”

Brett nodded and said, “Roger that.”

My phone rang. It was the pilot. “Final pass complete. Do you have the data, or do I need to go around again?”

I looked at the tablet screen and the little green icon had shifted. About a millimeter. They were in the garage. I said, “I got it. You’re cleared to depart.”

I held up the tablet and said, “That’s them. Let’s roll.”

We gave Brett and Nick time to circle the block, then Knuckles put the sedan in drive, inching forward, Jennifer behind us. My radio crackled, “Pike, Pike, this is Veep. We’re entering now.”

Knuckles took a ticket, and our drop bar opened. We stayed on the pressure pad, waiting. Nick called again. “Pike, we’re in, and I can see the vehicle. Range Rover sitting in the middle, three heads inside.”

We rolled forward, sliding into the darkness. We reached the bottom of the ramp, and the headlights of the motorcycles illuminated a late-model green Range Rover, three heads in silhouette. I recognized Billings in the driver’s seat.

“All elements, all elements, Billings is driving. Hostiles are in passenger seats. Blood, Veep, lock down the front. We’ll take the rear.”

We’re going to get the jump on them.
I saw the bikes coming forward, still about fifty meters away, and I climbed into the back of the sedan, cracking open the left-side door, getting ready to leap out when Knuckles came abreast. Then the enemy decided to vote.

While we were still thirty meters away, the rear passenger door of the Rover opened, the window already down. A man crouched
behind and began spraying rounds toward my men. I saw one of the bikes go down, the other goosing the throttle into the parked cars, the rider diving off into cover.

I leapt out, seeing the Range Rover jerk forward, spinning one motorcycle out of the way and racing up the exit ramp, shattering the drop bar at the top.

What the hell is Billings doing?

I rolled and swung up my weapon. The Arab dove into our row of cars, and I recognized him. It was the one I’d fought in the park, now on the loose with a weapon.

Knuckles dove out the passenger side of our car, into the parallel row across the garage. I said on the radio, “Target is on my side, my side.”

I heard “This is Blood. Veep’s hit.”

I heard the Arab shuffling forward one car over, trying to escape. I leapt up on the hood and scanned the other side, expecting to see him crouched low. He was right in front of me, so close our barrels clanged together as he whirled to fire. I squeezed off two rounds just as he slapped my weapon aside, the bullets slicing into the car behind. I dove on top of him, ripping his MP7 out of his hands. We both rolled upright with only one of us holding a weapon. Me.

He leapt to his feet and I rose as well, barrel on his chest. I was a millisecond from squeezing the trigger when I heard Knuckles shout, “No! We now need his intel.”

I realized he’d had him in his sights when I’d jumped onto the hood.

The Arab was standing with his arms raised, waiting on the bullet. I kept my weapon on him and said, “Get on your fucking knees.” He just snarled at me.

I said, “You want a shot at the title, little man?”

And he charged right at me, spitting in rage. By all rights, I should have pulled the trigger, but I didn’t. I dropped my weapon on its sling
and he began throwing punches. I blocked every one, batting them away like he was a child, letting him get close and wrap his arms around me for a takedown. He tried locking his leg behind me, just like he’d done in the park, but there was an enormous difference between me being surprised and me being ready.

I sidestepped it, grabbed his hair, and head-butted him, slamming my forehead like a pile driver right above the nose. His arms turned to rubber, the fight completely gone. I kicked his legs out from under him and dropped him on his back, looking for Knuckles.

The entire episode, from the time the door of the Range Rover opened until I’d dropped him, had taken maybe forty-five seconds.

Knuckles reached me and said, “I can’t believe you didn’t pull the trigger.”

“What? You just said we needed the intel, and you were right behind me. I was in no danger.”

He shook his head, zip-tying the Arab’s arms and legs, muttering, “. . . just embarrassed about that fight in the park.”

Which was true.

I said, “Brett, give me a status.”

“Veep’s got an in-and-out of his right thigh and a nick in his bicep. Nothing life-threatening.”

Knuckles finished searching the Arab, holding up a cell phone. On it was a map with a blinking blue marble. I recognized the site. The Fredrikstad Museum in Old Town.

Where the peace talks were being held.