The Insider Threat (19 page)

I
said, “Yes, sir. WILCO,” then hung up the cool, James Bond satellite phone affixed permanently to the small desk in front of me, thinking of the ramifications. I glanced at Jennifer, as usual in the window seat, watching the land of Jordan fall away as we rose into the air, her head pressed against the window like a child, the larger window facilitating a view that she’d never get on a commercial aircraft.

We were flying a Taskforce Gulfstream 650, which was conveniently leased to Grolier Recovery Services, the company Jennifer and I used for operations. While it was cool to zip around like a rock star, the plane actually had a few operational capabilities that were crucial. All of them built into an aircraft that rock stars used, and now available for us. As we say in the Taskforce, “money is no object.”

Across from me, in another plush, full-size seat that faced my direction like one on a train, Knuckles said, “Well? Where are we landing?”

I glanced toward the back of the aircraft, where Shoshana and Aaron were sitting and said, “Looks like we’re a go. How in the hell Kurt convinced the Oversight Council to let this continue is beyond me, but it was apparently a pretty good fight. Blaine says best behavior on this one.”

“Did Kurt tell them about our strap-hangers?”

“He had to. They’re the only ones who know what Rashid looks like. He couldn’t get approval for Alpha without a lead, and having an anchor of an Internet café wasn’t cutting it. At that point, apparently, things got ugly. Especially with that shithead Billings.”

Knuckles laughed and glanced back, making sure we were outside of earshot. “Billings has had a hard-on for you since Brazil. I’m sure your Israeli love interest being both there and now here caused him to shit a brick. He’s probably trying to figure out how you managed to get a Mossad team into Jordan to help your operation.”

I bristled at that, saying, “She’s not my damn love interest, and she purposely killed al-Britani. She has her own agenda, which concerns me.”

He said, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I may not be a spoon-bender like her, but I can see the connection.”

I waited on Jennifer to defend me, and when she didn’t, I said, “Are you going to let him say that shit?”

She said, “I’ll correct him the minute he’s wrong.”

“I can’t believe I’m even talking about this. The fact remains that she ignored orders and purposely killed our target. I get she’s needed here, but I worry about what she’ll do next.”

Knuckles said, “I’m not going to second-guess what happened out there. The guy was a terrorist willing to give his life for the cause. He was apparently on a suicide run, and he held a pistol. He got what was coming.”

I turned to Jennifer and said, “You were there. I got there late, but I saw that twisted thing in Shoshana. The one that comes out when she’s killing. She looked like a damn demon. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I know. I saw it too. What Knuckles says is true, but there was no way he was getting off the bridge alive once she showed up.”

I said, “And you let her go, when
you
broke orders.”

She looked like I’d slapped her, the implications clear on who was responsible for the end result. Knuckles interrupted, “She made a bad call, but the guy beheaded four Americans—that we know of. I got no issues with what happened to him.”

I said, “That shithead’s death isn’t the point. It’s the manner in which he was killed. We have zero information from him because he cracked his head like a melon on the concrete. We might as well have used a drone.”

Jennifer pursed her lips at my words but remained silent.

I said, “We have another mission, and this one is a capture to get to the heart of the Khorasan group. I don’t know if she’s capable of that. All she wants to do is kill.”

Jennifer said, “Al-Britani was her target. She talked to me about it in the van, before we left. She’ll listen to you. If she says she’ll follow orders, she will.”

“And how in the hell would you know that? Did you order her to eliminate al-Britani?”

“No! Of course not.”

“Then what’s changed? Are you psychic now too?”

She looked uncomfortable, saying nothing.

I said, “So it’s women’s intuition?”

I saw her eyes flash with anger and she said, “I lied about the bruises on my face. It wasn’t from the fight across the bridge.”

Taken aback, I went from her to Knuckles. He shrugged, unsure of where this was going.

She said, “Just get them up here. Give them the brief. She won’t fight you. I’ve seen what her word means. If she says she won’t do something, she won’t. But get her to say it. Looking back, she never told me she wouldn’t execute al-Britani. If she gives you her word, she’ll honor it.”

“You never trusted her before. What happened?”

“Let’s just say that I found a connection. Okay? If she wants to talk, she can. It’s her call.”

What the hell?
Jennifer was turning into an enigma. I used to be able to predict like clockwork what she’d say or where she’d stand on an issue, but lately, she seemed to be expanding her ability to deal with ambiguity. I wasn’t sure if I liked it. That was my terrain, and I relied on her as a sounding board. It did no good to talk to a mirror for answers, and she was rapidly becoming my image in the mirror.

I said, “Get ’em up here. Just them at first. I want some words with Aaron with Shoshana present. Then we’ll bring up the team.”

Knuckles did so, giving up his seat and standing in the aisle. The team in the back looked on curiously, but knew they’d be read on soon enough. I’m sure they were spinning conspiracy theories about what was going on.

Directly across from me was Aaron, with Shoshana in the window seat across from Jennifer. With a smile, he said, “So? Are you willing to use our expertise? We are outside of a contract right now and are available.”

I said, “First question, and this is from my higher command: Are you truly independent? Or is Mossad going to get a detailed operational summary of what occurs?”

“You mean, can I be trusted?”

“Yes, that’s
exactly
what I mean.”

Shoshana said, “That question was answered in Brazil. We never said a thing to Mossad about you. All they know is that we helped the United States. And got an award for doing so. They think it’s CIA.”

“How do I know that? Those are just words.”

Aaron said, “Yes, it might be just words, but it’s also irrelevant. If we were going to expose you, it would have already happened. But we didn’t. And we have much less reason to do so now. Anyway, we don’t even know who you work for.”

I considered his answer for a moment, then said, “Okay, I’ll believe you, but this is not for debate: I’ve got approval to
capture
Rashid. Take him down for follow-on intelligence. Is that going to be a problem?”

Confused, Aaron said, “No. Of course not. Why would we be against that?”

“Because your little assassin here wants to
kill
everything.
That’s
why.”

Shoshana bristled and started to say something. Aaron, his eyes still on mine, held out his hand and she stopped, amazing me that anyone could control her. He said, “Al-Britani was an enemy of the State of Israel. We were on a sanctioned mission. I cannot help that you interfered, but the mission comes first.”

He didn’t even question what had happened. Made no flimsy excuses. I said, “Just like the Russian in Istanbul.”

He leaned back and said, “Yes. Just like Vlad the Impaler.”

I said, “So what’s the mission here? Lay it out. I’m getting sick of the surprises.”

“Our mission now is that we work for you. I told you, I’m not under the constant employ of the State of Israel. I agreed to do this because you asked. Nothing more.”

I glanced at Shoshana and she saw something in my eyes that she didn’t like. She finally let out her feelings. “You Americans are always so superior. Always sure of your righteousness. You’ve never lived with the wolf at the door. Because of it, you put the mission second.” She looked at Jennifer and said, “You’re always willing to protect the men in your command at the expense of success.”

I ignored the glance, knowing she was baiting me, and said, “Sometimes the mission
is
the men. You’re so full of anger I can’t believe you’ve lived this long. Sometimes you have to back the fuck off. Sacrificing your men on a suicide mission is what the enemy does.”

She said, “Yes. And you fight fire
with
fire. The mission
always
comes first. Always. The enemy fears us precisely because of this.”

I grunted and said, “Is that why your government traded over a thousand Palestinian terrorists for one Israeli soldier?”

She slammed back into her seat and refused to meet my eyes. She said, “That would not have been my call.”

Looking at Aaron, I said, “Well, maybe they understand something you don’t. Sometimes the mission you’re given isn’t the one you should conduct.”

Aaron said, “We don’t have that luxury. The mission always comes first. And your mission is ours. I promise.”

I slowly nodded and said, “Okay. We’re going to stake out the Internet café he’s been using. We’ve got a team that’s using al-Britani’s Twitter account, saying the attack in Jordan was delayed and asking for guidance. He’ll want to respond. When he does, we ID him—meaning one of you will do so—then get a pattern of life. From there, we take him down. Can you do that?”

I jerked a thumb at Shoshana. “Or will devil eyes here want to split his head open?”

A
aron smiled and said, “We can do that. Anyway, if you don’t trust Shoshana, you can always pair her up with Jennifer. That’ll solve the problem.”

Aggravated again, I said, “Enough with the lesbian jibes. I’m serious here. I would think that you would be the last to disparage Jennifer or Shoshana’s skills with a lame joke.”

He scrunched his eyes and said, “Yes. I’m talking about her skill.”

I looked at Jennifer, but she refused to meet my eyes, instead focused on Shoshana.

What am I missing?

Knuckles was as clueless as I was. Aaron said, “She didn’t tell you? In my team, we know all, both the good and the bad.”

Which really poked a sore spot. And made me wonder if Jennifer
was
complicit in the death of al-Britani. I looked at Jennifer and said, “No, apparently my team doesn’t want to do that.”

Jennifer closed her eyes and said, “It’s not what you think. I told you that you could trust her.
I
trust her.”

I saw Shoshana’s eyes widen slightly in surprise. She turned to me. “I’ll do the mission, just as you ask. I’m yours to do with as you see fit. Is that enough?”

Jennifer locked eyes with me, her glare telling me to back off. I held her stare for a moment, seeing some pain come out. Recognizing the moral compass I’d thought she’d lost. She was blaming herself for al-Britani because of my comment earlier.

I said, “Yes, it’s enough.”

Shoshana said, “Good, because your little lover there kicked my ass in the back of a van. I don’t want to repeat that again.”

I snapped my head to Shoshana, and she was grinning, reading me whether I wanted her to or not. She knew how much the revelation would mean, precisely because Jennifer had kept it from me.

She said, “You’re a good man, Nephilim. Don’t try to make me into less.”

I turned to Jennifer, seeing embarrassment. And I understood it was true. Whatever had happened in the back of that van had been violent, and Jennifer had won. Which, because I’m a little bit of a Cro-Magnon, made me secretly slap the ground and cheer.

And Shoshana
knew
how I would react. She didn’t give a rat’s ass about her reputation. She was focused on the mission, and she was manipulating me to get it done.

I leaned back, acting like I was considering, but everyone understood it was for show. Shoshana could barely conceal her disdain for the act. Aaron waited patiently.

I said, “Okay, we’re in play here. We’ve got to get you guys outfitted and cover some basic contingencies. We’ve got a support team in a separate bird, and they’ll actually control our actions. We can’t meet them—ever—except for the drop-off of the precious cargo. They’re going into Albania under a completely different cover. We get Rashid, and that’s the only time we’ll meet. I’m sure you’re used to operating that way.”

Aaron said, “Yes, yes, we get the game. You made us leave our weapons and equipment. How will we do this?”

I said, “Knuckles, you want to show them the reason we fly with such incredible luxury?”

He said, “My pleasure. Follow me.”

They moved to the aisle and I stood, feeling Jennifer’s hand jerking my sleeve. I turned back to her and she said, “Pike . . . you know when we left the van, I didn’t think she’d kill al-Britani. Right?”

I stopped, looked her in the eye, and said, “I know. I believe you.” She glanced down at the floor and I took her hand. She looked at me again and I said, “I
know
.”

She paused, wanting to say something else.

“What?”

And, because I’ll never figure her out, Jennifer changed tack. “I think that whole report on the Lost Boys is crap. I don’t believe it.”

Like a guy seeing a car wreck, then trying to process it, I had to rewind her words to make sense. I said, “Jennifer, they’ve got the best minds in the world working on it. If they say it’s just a nickname, it probably is.”

“Maybe, but as far as the ‘best minds’ go, you rank right up with them. You’ve proven them wrong more times than they’ve been proven right. Half the time they’re predicting sunshine in a snowstorm.”

I moved down the aisle, saying, “Okay, okay. One mission at a time.”

She said nothing else and we reached the back of the aircraft. Brett said, “I guess we’re a go?”

Knuckles said, “Yeah, believe it or not. Let’s show our guests what they’ve won.”

Retro grinned and turned to the wall above the kitchen galley. He inserted a special tool into what looked like a straight plastic covering, firmly riveted in place. Magically, the entire panel fell away, exposing an interior full of armament where ordinarily the noise insulation would be. The entire aircraft was built as an infiltration platform, and housed everything from weapons to surveillance kits, all camouflaged to defeat host-nation customs and immigration.

Aaron said, “Very impressive. And we can choose what we want?”

Feeling superior, I glanced at the wall and did a double take. I saw a bunch of guns that shouldn’t have been there.

I said, “What the hell is this? What are those?”

Confused, Knuckles said, “What do you mean?”

I stabbed my finger at a black rifle hanging on a hook. It looked like an M4 that had been chopped down, with a collapsible stock and a bulbous suppressor running off of a nine-inch barrel, the free-floating aluminum hand guard acting as a sleeve over both, with Picatinny rails sprouting all over. Something from a movie set.

“This, damn it. What is it?”

The weapon was nothing like the HK UMP we ordinarily used, a .45-caliber sub-gun that could be suppressed without significant alteration of zero because the round was subsonic to begin with. Which is why we used it.

Sheepishly, Knuckles said, “We went away from the UMP. I thought, since you were a ‘team leader’ again, someone would have told you.”

Aaron went back and forth between us, I’m sure wondering if we were clowns in a circus and whether he wanted to put on the four-foot shoes.

Since Panda was a pure intelligence collection mission, we hadn’t needed a great deal of equipment in Kenya. We’d flown into Nairobi commercial, hiding our Glocks and surveillance kit the old-fashioned way: by breaking them apart in our checked luggage. When we’d redirected to Jordan for a capture mission, I’d asked for the deployment of the rock-star bird, complete with a package hidden inside. Due to cover concerns, it had arrived too late to be of any use, but would come in handy in Albania. Or so I thought. I hadn’t realized my idea of a “package” was now old news.

I said, “Nobody told me shit. So you don’t have my UMP here? The one zeroed for me.”

“Uh . . . no. But we do have the ability to zero. With lasers. Right here in the plane.”

Glancing at Aaron, and not wanting to make us look any worse, I said, “Okay, okay. What am I looking at?”

“Nothing more than an integrally suppressed AR, with some unique properties. Built by Primary Weapon Systems, it’s got a proprietary long-stroke piston system, making it much more reliable than the old gas AR guns like the M4.”

I said, “And that was worth the switch? Since when did we have issues with the UMP’s reliability?”

“Reliability wasn’t the problem. The caliber was. The PWS system is chambered in 300 Blackout. Much, much more knockdown power than the UMP’s forty-five. The can is Gemtech. Believe it or not, it’s shorter than the UMP suppressor, and it’s built specifically for the Blackout round. In subsonic, it sounds like a pellet gun.”

He saw my look and said, “You have to admit, we’ve been in some gunfights where the reach of the UMP was questionable. I know when we created the Taskforce we all talked about how the fighting would be within a room, but it hasn’t worked out that way.”

I said, “That’s why we have the HK416. There are different tools for each job. I can’t believe the Taskforce just switched complete weapon systems based on one idiot’s recommendation. The damn UMP worked fine. It was concealable, and had serious knockdown power for close quarters. Now you want me to tote an AR?”

He gave me his
I’m going to act like I agree until I tell you you’re wrong
look, something I’d seen for more years than I could count.

He said, “Yeah, okay, but let’s do some counting. One, Bosnia. Outgunned from a distance. Two, Hungary. Outgunned from a distance. Three, Egypt. Outgunned from a distance. Four, Ireland. Not outgunned from a distance, because you gave Jennifer a 416. I could go on, but those are off the top of my head, in operations with
you
. I’m sick of that shit.”

When I heard that, I knew arguing was going nowhere. Clearly, he was the man who’d done the testing, convincing the Taskforce to change, and I’d just insulted him with my comments.

He continued, ticking off statements on his fingers, “The 300 Blackout in supersonic has much greater knockdown power, and in subsonic it beats anything in its class. The HOLOsight has a Mil-Dot calibrated for both, so you don’t have to worry about zero problems if you switch from sub to supersonic, and the Gemtech suppressor can handle both just fine. In fact, better than fine. It doesn’t have the range of 5.56, but it works great for its purpose. A gap that needed to be closed. The PWS system will clear a room just like the UMP, but beyond that, it’ll clear a block when shit gets bad. Unlike the UMP.”

I grinned, and he backed off. I pulled one off the rack and said, “It’s a little big.”

He said, “Bullshit. It’s a little heavier, but it’s not big. What you’re holding is a massive half inch longer than a suppressed UMP. Half inch. The only reason it’s heavy is because it’s made with actual metal instead of that plastic crap that kept breaking on the UMP.”

I said, “But the UMP stock can fold over, making it a hell of a lot shorter.”

He pushed a button right at the buffer spring, and I’ll be damned if the buttstock didn’t swing over, much like the UMP.

He said, “Only difference is you can’t operate the weapon this way. It’ll fire exactly once, but we never assault with a folded UMP anyway.”

I grinned and said, “So, you don’t have a vested interest in this experiment, do you?”

“Only because I’ve hated the bastard who brought the UMP into the Taskforce before I got there. Some asshole who always thought he knew best.”

Which, of course, would be me. And he knew it.

I said, “Touché. Get them outfitted. I’m assuming the pistols are the same, unless you decided that we need to start using dart guns.”

He grinned and said, “Nope. Same ol’ Glocks.”

Shoshana was gazing at the armament in lust, like a pothead entering a Colorado marijuana store for the first time. She stroked one of the systems and said, “May I?”

Happy at the interest, Knuckles said, “Sure.”

Jennifer tugged my sleeve, saying, “Can I pull you away from the commando wet dream for a moment?”

I grinned and followed her. Out of earshot from the others, she said, “Did you hear what I said earlier? About the Lost Boys?”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard. What do you want me to do about it?”

“I want the reports. I want to see them for myself.”

In the old days, when I really
was
a Cro-Magnon, I would have just told her to stow it, but Jennifer had shown a unique ability to solve problems others had missed. In this case, the problem set wasn’t ours. We were after a different terrorist. I settled for logic to dissuade her.

I said, “Look, they did a complete scrub on Hussein. It all came up empty. He had no connections to anyone who went to Syria. Shit, even the school they found him in was closed down after he left.”

“What for?”

“I didn’t read the report, but apparently it was a pretty heinous place. Some kids killed a guard, and in the ensuing investigation to find them, they found out the school was hell on earth. Now the people running it are on trial. Apparently, they got what they deserved. Hussein is exactly what the name said. A fucking lost boy, looking for something to make his life worth a damn.”

She looked out the window, thinking. I said, “What?”

“Can I get the reports? Please?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I just can’t shake the feeling that we’re missing a piece. I just want to make sure there’s nobody else looking for something to make his life worth a damn.”