Titanium Security Series 4 - Extinguished (16 page)

“They all know. Tom called them when you went into surgery and I talked to your mom when you were just out of recovery. Your parents and brother all wanted to fly over here tomorrow but I told them to hold off. I thought in light of the security situation they should wait until you’re transferred back stateside.”

He nodded, the motion stiff and jerky. He couldn’t imagine having his family see him this way. “What about the guys?” There’d been others with him in the truck when the bomb detonated.

Zahra eased back, wiped her wet cheeks then pulled her chair up to the side of the bed before responding. “Two of the guys in your vehicle died in the blast. The other is on the fourth floor burn unit. He’s expected to make it, but…”

But he may not wish he had.

Sean swallowed. He hadn’t known the Feds in his truck for more than a few hours, but the news still hit him hard. Fuck. If he’d driven just a bit closer to Hunt’s vehicle, if he’d pressed down on the accelerator just a bit more when they’d hit that hairpin turn, maybe the IED would’ve missed them. “And the others?” he forced himself to ask.

She smoothed a gentle hand over his hair. “Out hunting.”

He exhaled. That was exactly the answer he’d been hoping for. “With who?” They’d be shorthanded now.

“Jordyn’s acting as Blake’s spotter for this one. The two of them are supposed to rendezvous with Alex and the others in another hour or so.”

Sean ran a hand over his face. He remembered Blake talking to him, holding the phone to his ear so he could speak to Zahra. He’d been on the helo with Sean too. He remembered little snapshots of seeing Blake leaning over him, talking to him over the throb of the rotors and the noise of the turbine engines. “She’s good. She’ll do fine.” And Blake would look after Jordyn well while they were out there. But fuck, it should be him out there instead of in here with his legs a dead weight in this goddamn hospital bed.

Zahra smiled sadly at him, took his hand in hers again. “We’ll help from here if you’re up to it tomorrow.”

Fuck, he didn’t know what he was going to be up for until he got the final word on his legs from the doctors. Right now it was all he could do to keep from screaming. The rage was there along with the helplessness, twining together to simmer deep in his gut. He was afraid to even hope he might be able to walk again, but he just couldn’t accept that it might never happen. What if the swelling went down and he still couldn’t move his legs? “How did they target us?” he demanded instead, desperate for answers.

She shook her head, more tears glistening in her eyes. “Someone alerted Hassani’s network when you crossed the border yesterday. Either one of the border guards, or someone monitoring a satellite somewhere. We think whoever carried out the attack had the bomb in place at least the night before you crossed over. Claire’s checking out satellite feeds and chatter right now to see if she can find any more leads. I’d have helped her but I just couldn’t concentrate until you woke up and I got to see for myself that you’re okay.” Her voice broke and she put a hand to her mouth as she fought back more tears.

He wasn’t fucking
okay
. He clenched his jaw to keep from snarling the words at her, stared down at his dead legs instead and felt that black hole of fear yawning before him again. “I want those fuckers to pay, Zahra.” Most of all, he wanted Hassani dead for everything he’d done.

She squeezed his hand in silent understanding. “We’re gonna get him, Sean.” Her tone was low, deadly. “We’re gonna get them
all
.”

****

The simple mud brick house had armed guards posted at every exit and entrance.

Hidden in an interior room that backed right into the mountain, Malik kept his back to the wall as he surveyed the men gathered around the circle, keeping his line of sight clear. Five Taliban leaders, including the man leading the TTP cell Malik had garnered the trust of over the past few months. Not that he trusted any of them in turn.

They were all seated on carpets that the host had placed on the dirt floor, sipping cups of hot, fragrant tea as they discussed their overall strategy that Malik had outlined using maps. At one point he’d made a drawing in the dirt in the middle of the circle to ensure even the illiterate understood what to do.

“Your men performed well this morning,” he said in Pashto to one of the younger leaders in the group, a short and stocky man with a heavy black beard. “The reports say two Americans were killed and two more were badly wounded.” It was a promising start for this operation. The bombing had not only eliminated some of the NSA team members, it had also started the chain of events that would culminate in the coming battle. Whenever that took place.

“My men were honored to carry out the attack.”

Malik inclined his head slightly. Having men like the Taliban fighters at his disposal was incredibly useful. Their willingness to die in the fight made them invaluable for what he had in mind. “The survivors will be coming once they verify my location, and we don’t know yet what kind of force they’ll be bringing with them.”

“It does not matter,” another leader said from the other side of the circle. “However many men they bring, they will all die in these hills.” A chorus of agreement rose up from the group.

Malik smiled and sipped his tea. So much easier to make this succeed when he had a large number of men willing to do his dirty work for him. All he needed was for them to buy him enough of a window to escape back across the border and make it to Islamabad. If he could make it that far without being killed or captured, his allies in the military would guard him the rest of the way until the end goal was accomplished. “You all have the weapons I provided stored away?” The men all nodded. “Excellent.”

The conversation flowed around the circle for a while after that until Bashir swept the heavy rug at the entrance aside and stepped into the room with the satellite phone in his hand. “Sir?”

Malik excused himself and took the phone into a different room before answering in Urdu.

“That thing you asked me about?”

He tensed as he recognized the voice of his contact within the ISI. This was it. “What about it?”

“There’s movement.”

A subtle warmth spread through him, almost like the tingle of anticipation. “How close?”

“About six kilometers to your southwest. Four of them. On foot.”

Only four? Malik frowned. Alex Rycroft was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. Malik had learned everything he could about the man’s background from the mole he’d used—Rycroft’s own personal assistant—and through his sources within the ISI. By all indications, Rycroft made for a dangerous and determined adversary. Malik expected him to act quickly and aggressively after this morning’s bombing.

“No others?” That didn’t make any sense at all. After the bombing, he was sure the former Green Beret would gather reinforcements from one of the other American agencies.

“None that we can see.”

The aerial view from the satellite would show that fairly clearly, especially with the heat signatures it gave. “When did you last check their position?”

“Five minutes ago.”

That surprised him too.

“Good luck.” The man hung up.

Malik lowered the phone, still frowning. Good luck? He didn’t need luck, not with only four men coming after him. Even when Rycroft’s team traced the call to this location, the Taliban fighters could easily eliminate them all. No, there had to be more to this. He’d be very disappointed if Rycroft didn’t have at least a team of Rangers or SEALs to come after him as well.

Trying to guess what his adversary’s next move would be, Malik made his way back into the cramped back room. The leaders all looked up at him expectantly as he took his seat against the wall again. “The Americans have just been spotted on satellite a few kilometers away from here. So far there are only four of them.”

The eldest leader, a white-bearded man likely somewhere in his late sixties, scoffed at the news. “My men can take them all in one attack. They brought no one else here?”

“Not yet.” But there had to be a reason. And killing even those four wouldn’t be as easy as this elder believed. Not with their experience and elite military backgrounds. He glanced around the circle. “You all understand what to do, and what is expected of you and your men?” Nods all around. “Very good.”

One man held up his cup. “Death to the infidels!” The others chorused in agreement.

Malik reclined onto his hip and elbow as he raised his cup in salute to that sentiment. The time had come for a strong leader to take the reins of power in Pakistan. His country would no longer kowtow to America’s every whim. “Enjoy your tea, then I want you to take up the positions we discussed.” He expected that the NSA would have locked onto the satellite phone’s transmission and perhaps even broken the encryption to decipher the conversation within the next hour.

Malik smiled into his cup. So far everything was going exactly as he’d planned.

In light of them being short on manpower and dealing with time sensitive and perishable intel, Jordyn knew it made sense for her to be tapped as Blake’s spotter. Still, she couldn’t quite stem the nerves humming inside her as she and Blake rode the motorbikes she’d quickly finished repairing a few hours ago.

After crossing the border, they’d driven the same stretch of the Khyber Pass where the IED had taken out Dunphy’s vehicle. It had made her skin crawl to see the remnants of the blackened bits of metal scattered at the side of the road. Pausing only to cammy up their faces and hands, they were now headed to the rendezvous point Alex had established here in the Spin Ghar Mountains. The others had already been broken into two-man teams, but both Lang and Wright had to stay back at the TOC to guard Claire, along with the sensitive information and equipment housed there.

Overhead the sky was a moonless veil of black above them, punctuated by millions of stars. Her night vision goggles allowed her to follow the harsh terrain without losing Blake or crashing the bike in a ravine. She opened the throttle to follow him up through a shallow wadi, the dry hard-packed dirt spraying a bit beneath her tires as she reached the crest of it and hit level ground at the top. The noise was a risk in this quiet, desolate landscape, but the bikes would get her and Blake up into the hills way faster than covering the distance on foot.

Once they met up with the others and reviewed the plan of attack, they could get close to their final position on the bikes then move out on foot until they’d found a good hide to set up in for the night. As soon as they got confirmation from Claire or obtained a visual from one of the ground team members that Hassani was in that village, they would act. And act hard. Every single one of them wanted Hassani brought to justice for what he’d done to Dunphy and the Feds. For everything he’d done to the team members over the past few weeks.

They reached the crest of a low ridge in the foothills and Blake cut his engine. Jordyn followed suit while he contacted the remaining ground team members via the radio in the sudden silence. When the exact location for the rendezvous was given, she followed Blake again for another fifteen minutes or so. Finally she made out the figures emerging from the thin concealment of scrub brush in the distance, the men lit up in green by her NVGs. Alex, Gage, Hunter and Evers waited for them to pull up, rifles in hand as they maintained perimeter security against threats she and Blake might not have heard or seen while on the bikes.

Alex spoke as they climbed off the silenced bikes. “You guys made good time.”

“Yeah, not bad,” Blake said, putting down his kickstand. “Any news yet?”

“Claire’s been trying to locate Sand Viper by tracking the Taliban leaders known to support him,” Alex answered, using Hassani’s code name as an added precaution in case they were overheard somehow. With Hassani being former ISI and still having help from at least one contact in the agency, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. “Got a few hits on the men from the meeting today. Then about fifteen minutes ago, Claire got a lock on a satellite phone call late this afternoon coming from the same village. She was able to break the encryption and verify one of the voices as Sand Viper.”

Jordyn’s pulse leaped. This was it, the break they’d been waiting for. She was both nervous and revved at the thought of helping put that son of a bitch in cuffs. Or, if need be, help direct a bullet to his center mass.

“Any trouble at the border?” Hunter asked.

“No,” Blake said. “Barely looked at our ID this time. Guard was more interested in checking out the bikes.”

Ever since Lang had delivered them to the Pak side of the border, Jordyn hadn’t been able to shake off the anxiety eating at her. If someone at the border or in the Pak intelligence community had leaked the team’s presence this morning, then it stood to reason they now knew about her and Blake’s presence as well.

She just prayed that whatever means they’d used to track the convoy earlier today hadn’t been following her and Blake since they’d hopped on the bikes. Nothing like running around in enemy territory with a virtual crosshairs on your back to get the adrenaline flowing.

“How’s Dunphy?” Gage asked, hands on hips in the confident yet relaxed pose of a man comfortable with his surroundings. All of the men with her now had that same assertive posture, she noted. Out here on the hunt, they were all in their element. She felt safer knowing that.

“Out of recovery and up in his room,” Blake answered. “Zahra’s with him. Tom said they’re both doing the best they can under the circumstances.”

Jordyn mentally cringed at the thought of what Sean’s reaction had been when he woke up and heard the news. She just couldn’t imagine how that would feel.

“I want these fucking assholes
bad
,” Hunter growled, his tone and body language full of menace as he cradled his M4 and surveyed the surrounding hills.

“Then let’s get hunting,” Evers said as he shifted his stance, clearly restless and eager to start moving.