The Icarus Prediction: Betting it all has its price (22 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Blackenford Capital

Manhattan, New York

As Sergei walked into the building lobby, he remembered how much he had dreaded work these past few days. He walked towards the elevator and started the ascent up to the to Blackenford headquarters. His coworkers had effectively turned into packs of overzealous paparazzi stopping by every few milliseconds asking on Jarrod’s whereabouts. Sergei had stuck to story as instructed, saying Jarrod was in Eastern Europe wooing a big time client… but the natives were getting restless. With William Blackenford still in a coma and Jarrod nowhere to be found, rumors of the firm’s imminent demise were rampant. The ironic thing was that outside of the handful of Jarrod’s team that were “in the know” on Blackenford’s precarious financial position, the rest of the company was actually in the dark on the broader situation. The elevator doors opened with a loud chime on the Blackenford floor and Sergei strategically waited a second or two extra to see if he could chart a path to his cube without being bothered by his intellectually inferior coworkers. He started the journey to his desk hoping to duck through the kitchen area when he saw a group of higher ups convening in the main conference room with a well-dressed “lawyerly” gentleman he did not recognize. He wanted to listen to his inner self who told him to keep walking and avoid social contact with the ego driven partners, but he had an inkling that something of interest was going on.

Sergei pushed open the glass doors causing everyone to room to turn their heads his direction. Don Pippin quickly piped up, horribly mispronouncing Sergei’s name. “Sergio, what are
you
doing here?”

Sergei, fed off the tension. In fact, deep down, he loved these awkward situations. “You tell me why I shouldn’t here be!” he commanded as he scoped the room. In the next 2 seconds he canvassed the room and noticed all the limited partners were present and hence surmised there was something quite important that was about to occur. “All partners are here, and you know Jarrod is out of town. I am acting on his behalf.”

Pippin started turning tomato red when he fired back. “Jarrod is not needed here, he is suspended anyway.”

A neatly dressed attorney was at the head of the conference room table shuffling through papers. His eyes paused for a second and made eye contact with Sergei. He then stood up and addressed the whole room. “Suspended or not, each limited partner needs to have a representative present. After all there are legal implications if we do not follow company bylaws when determining a potential successor to Mr. Blackenford.” Sergei quickly put 2 and 2 together, given William Blackenford’s incapacitated state, a succession plan would have to be enacted very soon to put someone in charge. And an absence of a clear successor would lead to more chaos and a sure power struggle.

“Let’s get started,” the lawyer continued. With that everyone took a seat at the table, with a few of the more annoying employees, Don Pippin and Sheila Madsen taking a seat practically in the lawyer’s lap. The next 28 minutes were sheer hell for Sergei as a result of the exceptionally boring minutia discussed regarding procedures and policies that no one cared about. The 29
th
minute, however, was worth the wait. “And now, we will name the successor as head of Blackenford Capital in the event that William Blackenford is permanently incapacitated,” announced the lawyer. “As the company bylaws state, if Mr. Blackenford is permanently incapacitated, or, is otherwise no longer able to function as the President of Blackenford Capital, then a new individual pre-appointed by William Blackenford will assume the role of President of Blackenford Capital. And indeed William has previously appointed this individual and escrowed it with our firm.” The lawyer then picked up a plain vanilla envelope from the desk and carefully reviewed the signature and date that adorned the back where the flap was. He then opened the letter slowly as if he was revealing an Oscar winner. Donald Pippin and Sheila Madsen both seemed to clench up like they were ready to be announced as best actor.

“And Mr. Blackenford has official pre-appointed Jarrod T Stryker as successor in the role of President of Blackenford Capital. This decision and action will be executed and in full force in as of next Friday if Mr. Blackenford continues to be in an incapacitated state.”

Both Sheila and Don looked as if they had just had a bowel movement. Don piped up “But Jarrod is suspended.” The lawyer quickly scanned the details of the bylaws for a few moments and then pointed to a specific clause halfway up the page.

“
Not anymore
. The suspension is officially rescinded in accordance with the bylaws.”

With unadulterated disgust, they both simultaneously stood up and stormed out of the conference room. Sergei smiled a little and then muttered under his breath “If Jarrod pulls this off, then I will ask for new shiny office. One with fancy humidor for my Cubans.”

*

Sarah and Jarrod sat in a cloud of frustration and melancholy in a dimly lit conference room in the basement of the US Embassy in Tbilisi during the early morning hours. CIA Station Chief Rick Edgerton paced back and forth. “This is goddamn ridiculous. These idiots blow a whole pipeline to hell, and we don’t have a solid lead on where they are and what they are doing next?”

“What intel did you get from the site? Did our other agents on the ground find anything yet?” Sarah chimed in. “We know they used a Semtex-based explosive from the inside of the pipeline, and the blast indicators show that the explosion force was very consistent across the entire section of affected pipeline.”

Rick interjected, losing his cool, “So you guys don’t have a single good lead on where Basayev is? Do I understand that correctly? I could have him sitting right behind me wiring a bomb to my ass and…”

Before he finished his sentence, Rick’s secretary nonchalantly poked her head in and said, “Mr. Edgerton, there’s a man calling himself
The Merchant
at the security desk asking for you.”

Rick was indeed puzzled. The Merchant was supposed to be under deep cover! “Well, what are you waiting for? Bring him down here right now!”

*

Elbruk Matsil (aka The Merchant), out of breath and looking a bit pale, was hurried into the room by a guard and took a seat at the conference room table. He blurted, “They almost killed me, I had to put a grenade in the cabbage. Basayev…I think he is going to strike again and very soon.”

Rick coaxed him on a bit, hoping that the reference to cabbage didn’t infer that Elbruk had a screw loose.

“OK, where? Tell me where.”

“I don’t know, well, I have an idea, He will strike along the Baku-Tbilisi pipeline. Something about it being hidden in plain sight.”

Edgerton instinctively fired back “Matsil, my three-year-old daughter knows he may strike along the pipeline. It’s over a thousand goddamn miles long! I need to know how and where?”

“Wait, wait,” Elbruk said as he closed his eyes. “I remember there was a thirteen. There was a thirteen on the station post. It must be there!”

Rick lifted his head to bark orders toward Jarrod and Sarah, but before his lips moved, Sarah announced, “Found it!” as she looked at her phone.

“It’s about forty kilometers from Nevsehir.” She looked at her watch. “If you can arrange a flight, we can make it in three hours.”

“I’ll have Koksol meet you there. Oh, and one of my contacts from the Mossad may be able to help with logistics. He has a lot of access inside Turkish borders.”

Sarah seemed surprised. “From the Mossad? I thought the Israelis stopped collaborating with the Turks after that spy ring fiasco a few years ago?”

“You would be surprised who is in bed with who when money is on the line. Now stop wasting time and get out!” Edgerton barked as he waved them out of the room and picked up the phone to arrange the logistics.

*

The flight to Nevsehir seemed to take five minutes; Jarrod and Sarah spent the flight in contact with the Turkish antiterrorism team and Bulent Koksol, charting every hotspot along the pipeline in that region that they would need to cover. They arranged for a team of Turkish agents to drive them to Station Post 13 over the rocky countryside.

Jarrod turned. “If we can pull this off and find this jackass, you owe me dinner.”

Sarah let out a little laugh “You must be joking. If I bail
you
out of this mess, then you will owe me for life.”

“OK, let’s settle up after Basayev is dead.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Nevsehir, Turkey

Two Days Left Before Options Expiration

As Jarrod and Sarah exited the plane, Bulent Koksol was on the dilapidated runway waiting for them.

“Sorry to meet your acquaintance in such a precarious situation, Ms. Kashvilli and Mr. Stryker. Mr. Edgerton has briefed me on your mission and needs.”

He motioned for another gentleman to join him, An older gentleman dressed in a neatly pressed black suit came out of the shadows and tipped his hat twice, as if he were an actor in an off-Broadway play.

“Sir, madam, I believe I have never met your acquaintance as well. I am Eli Manon, cultural attaché out of the Israeli embassy in Turkey. But my formal title as you know is quite irrelevant. The key is we can exchange information to stop an imminent attack on the pipeline. I am privy to information that could assist you.”

“Pleased to meet you as well,” Sarah responded. “Let’s share intel on the way to the pipeline.” She looked at her watch. “We need to hurry.”

“Right this way,” Bulent responded as he started walking toward a dark green Range Rover parked on the jet way.

Jarrod and Sarah both shared a glance, mentally sharing notes on whether Mr. Manon was full of hot air.

*

Jarrod took a long, hard look at the vast pipeline stretching to the horizon. Behind him was a stretch of the Taurus mountain range that covered most of southeastern Turkey. He scanned the pipeline and saw nothing obviously out of place. Nothing seemed odd. No vehicle tracks or disrupted dirt that he could see. He was starting to worry that they were in the wrong place. The Turkish National Intelligence Organization (or NIO for short) agents around him continued to probe at the pipeline looking for spots of tampering or for any variations in the black metal monster that stretched as far as the eye could see. Sarah was a few dozen meters away, briefing Koksol and Manon and a bunch of the Turkish agents.

He took a few steps closer to the pipeline. From afar, it looked like a tiny piece of black spaghetti snaking its way through the countryside. From up close, it was massive. It was about fourteen feet tall and was on large steel support beams with the pipe almost the same girth as a tanker truck.

Jarrod felt a buzzing in his pocket. Surprised that he even had signal, he pulled out his phone and saw a text from Sergei.

I’m sorry, boss, but William just passed an hour ago. This is sad, sad day. Let me know if you ok.

Jarrod went numb and his vision became blurred as tears welled up in his eyes. He gazed over toward Sarah, who was about thirty yards away from him. She was directing Turkish agents, intently focused on the task at hand. In other words,
she had no idea.
He lost his grip on his phone, and it fell forward a few feet under one of the pipeline supports. This news would absolutely crush her. How much death could she take? First her sister, now her father. He stared aimlessly. His mentor, father figure, confidant…was gone. Now more than ever, the fate of the company, Sarah, and his own future were all perilously teetering in the balance.

He heard a yell from the distance. “You goin’ to help out at all?”

Jarrod, a bit startled, looked in the direction of the noise. Sarah didn’t look happy. “Jarrod, get your head in the game. We need to step it up; focus on the task! Don’t get distracted.”

Unfortunately, she was right. He had to keep this news from her. “Sorry! I’m on it,” he responded.

Jarrod took a deep breath. In fact, he took about three breaths in succession, trying to compose himself before anyone noticed. He wiped a lone tear from his right cheek and took another hard look at a section of pipeline. He saw a faint glow near one of the supports and quickly realized it was the phone he had dropped a few moments earlier. As he bent down to pick up his phone, he noticed the glow illuminated the back of one of the pipeline supports and exposed what looked like a slit in the back of the support. As he bent down, it became clear that a small section of the support had been tampered with. He noticed the outline of a small, two-inch square had been carved into the hollow metal post, and thin metal tape matching the color of the support was covering it up. He took out his Swiss army knife and pried open the thin tape that was affixed to the square slit. What he saw was unmistakable.

“It is C4! C4 is wedged into the supports! And a transmitter is attached. Check all the goddamn supports!” Jarrod yelled to everyone in earshot.

Immediately, the Turkish agents gravitated to the nearest supports and started looking for other explosives. Sarah, Koksol, and Eli all ran over to assess the situation. “Where is it? Where is it? There isn’t a timer?”

“No timer. Sarah” responded Jarrod. “Look.”

Sarah did a once-over of the explosive. She bent down and took a careful look at the device, calmly and carefully to ensure she didn’t end up in pieces. “Wait, this is definitely a radio transmitter of some sort.”

Eli piped in, “I’m not sure that is a transmitter. It may be a timer.”

“Eli, no this is definitely a transmitter,” Sarah retorted with some clear annoyance. She continued, “Koksol, any other confirmations from your agents?”

“Not yet,” he responded. “We can’t find any others. This doesn’t make sense.”

Before he finished his sentence, one of the Turkish agents about a football field away yelled in their native language. “
I bulduk!
C4
I bulduk!
”

Koksol confirmed, “Jarrod, we found another explosive.” Then another agent a half kilometer away confirmed yet another explosive hidden in a support.

Jarrod was distraught. “Damn it! They are placed randomly. There are probably over fifty thousand supports along the pipeline. We will never be able to find them all.”

“Jarrod, the triggerman would need a line of sight to the transmitter to be effective. Whoever is detonating must be close, within thirty miles or so,” Sarah said, looking around.

Jarrod thought aloud, “It’s probably someone flying in a helicopter then.”

Koksol shook his head. “That would be too unstable. Based on these transmitters, they would have to fly close to the ground along the entire pipeline and would risk getting blown out of the sky by either the explosives themselves or the Turkish NIO.”

Sarah responded, “All the explosives would have to be detonated from a location that has a
clear
unobstructed path to each transmitter!” Simultaneously they both turned their focus on the Taurus Mountains off in the distance.

“Sarah, it has got to be up there, somewhere on the lower range. You would have line of sight to fifty plus kilometers of pipeline from up there. Wait a second. I believe there’s a…” Jarrod paused and quickly pulled out his long-range binoculars. He rescanned the barren range left to right three times in succession. “Yep, they are there. A set of observation towers about 35 kilometers away means the triggerman, maybe Basayev, could be somewhere there. He wouldn’t trust this to one of his goons. Bulent, get the plane ready and confirm the parachutes.” Bulent gave a quick nod as he pulled out his phone. Jarrod took the moment to pull Sarah aside. “Sarah, there is something I need to tell you in private.”

“Unless it is going to help us find Basayev, it will need to wait,” Sarah said, shrugging off his arm. She turned and went to the Jeep with Eli. Jarrod was frozen in place for a second, then took a deep breath and started off behind them.

*

Taurus Mountains

Southeastern Turkey

“Altitude, eight thousand feet, speed 284 knots, sir,” the pilot responded as Jarrod asked for the current altitude and airspeed. Jarrod ordered the Gulfstream pilot to fly lower so they could get a better view of the observation towers. Low clouds made the search for the target towers more opaque than they had hoped.

Eli was staring at an infrared display connected to some high-tech gadgetry next to him. He had convinced Jarrod that the infrared was the best way to track the men, so he was on board to help. The terrain showed up as a gray background with red-orange outlines of occasional stags and goats. Sarah donned the binoculars frequently as she looked out one of the windows of the jet. As they circled near the top of the peak, Sarah glanced over at Jarrod. “So you OK with the plan? You make the first jump, and I will coordinate from here. Once you pinpoint a target, I will jump, and we can engage the target. If we are wrong about the target, we are going to lose our window and our only chance to nail this bitch.”

Jarrod didn’t answer.

“Jarrod, are you sure you want to do this? It’s been a long time since you jumped out of a plane, let alone navigated a descent on a tree-lined mountainside.”

“Of course. This is the part I’ve been missing the most.”

“I think we are getting close.”

Just then, an alarm went off on the infrared equipment. A number of moving figures, presumably human, were spotted near a structure about two kilometers away on the mountainside past a clearing. Eli feverishly tuned dials and settings, trying to get the figures in focus. Eli seemed to be quite bad at his craft, however. The moment it seemed like they were zeroing in on coordinates, Eli would twist a dial and the screen would go fuzzy. Finally Sarah bumped Eli out of the way and took control. Within seconds she was able to gather coordinates and a suitable drop zone. Eli seemed a bit annoyed at been upended by a woman as he fidgeted around in his pocket.

Sarah turned to Jarrod. “This must just be it. Based on the intel, there shouldn’t be anyone at this tower; it is only manned during the winter months. There is a clearing about a kilometer from the tower. Land there, and then start the recon. Don’t engage until I touch down. We have one shot at this. Don’t screw it up.”

Jarrod clicked the carabineer on the one side of his pack and pulled. “See you on the other side, Sarah,” he responded and turned toward the hatch. He pulled down on the override lever next to the door, which commenced a series of loud whirring sounds, at the end of which the door opened and the influx of air caused the noise level to rise tenfold in an instant. Jarrod grabbed the side of the door and focused on the upcoming clearing as he prepped to make the jump.

Sarah braced herself against the opposite side of the aircraft. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eli still trifling around his jacket pocket with his hand and extracting it to reveal a handgun.
You have got to be shitting me
, she thought. “Weapon!” she screamed at the top of her lungs trying desperately to raise her voice above the loud engine noise that engulfed the plane.

Sarah had little time to react, so she threw her parachute toward Eli. Eli flinched for a second and was able to dodge and fired at Jarrod a sub-second later. Jarrod who was facing out of the plane’s hatch unaware of the events unfolding behind him, lurched forward violently as the bullet made impact. He reached out as a reaction but only grasped air as he was swept out of the plane towards the clearing below.

Sarah, overcome with anger, got close enough to kick Eli’s elbow, causing him to drop the gun toward the airplane hatch. Eli, enraged, began cursing in Hebrew as he scowled and then lunged towards Sarah. He managed to grab Sarah’s hair and jerked her forcefully toward the metal grated floor of the aircraft.

She hit the unforgiving deck of the airplane shoulder first and winced in pain. Sarah, dazed but still conscious unsuccessfully grasped for Eli’s leg to prevent him from retrieving his weapon. She saw Eli quickly lumber towards the open hatch a few feet away to try and reclaim the gun. The weapon vibrated back and forth with the motion of the plane and was now teetering precariously near the open hatch. If Eli were to get to his gun, Sarah knew she was as good as dead. She quickly ran through her options in her mind as the loud drone of the engines continued immersing the plane. In reality, the list of available options were slim. The only thing between her and probable death was Eli’s infrared equipment and monitor which were on a metal rolling cart near her feet.

When he bent down and picked up the gun, out of both instinct and desperation Sarah kicked the cart as hard as she could muster with the black sole of her steel-toed boot, sending it (and all its contents) hurtling toward Eli. His eyes widened as he knew he would not be able to get out of the way. He fired off an errant shot before the cart struck his right leg with significant force, causing him to take a step backward with his left foot. Unfortunately for Eli, that step was three-quarters on air outside of the airplane hatch. He grabbed for anything he could to stabilize himself. Luckily for Sarah, the only thing he was able to grasp was the cart itself, which was already exiting the plane. Eli tumbled backward out of the plane hatch and continued to curse intelligibly in Hebrew as he hurtled towards the mountain below.