Vengeance: A Derek Stillwater Novel (Derek Stillwater Thrillers Book 8) (24 page)

As they drove the faux-ambulance
through Cairo toward Heliopolis, Derek and his Mossad team could see the smoke ahead of them. The air was filled with sirens.

“I’m not sure this is going to pull him in,” Derek said. “He made his statement. Bob may be dead.”

“He wants you. He’s obsessed with you,” Noa said. “He may drag this out until his brother is completely safe. And that’s still at least six or seven hours away.”

The closer they got to Heliopolis, the worse traffic became. Schmuel flicked on the lights and sirens, but that only helped a little bit.

In his ear, Sholes: Goddammit! Don’t cut me off like that!

Derek grinned. He loved pissing off government personnel. “What’s the sit-rep?”

“A message just came in from Nazif. Directly to the embassy. A video. I’ve sent it on to your team.”

He clicked on his emails and pulled up the video file.

Nazif appeared. “At precisely four o’clock you must be standing by the entrance to the Cairo International Stadium or I will kill Secretary Mandalevo. Be there.”

That was it.

Sholes: Where are you?

Noa: Heading in that general direction. It’s going to be tight.

“Do we have some backup?” Derek asked.

Sholes: Nathan and what’s left of his team are on their way with a couple others. Our resources are getting pretty thin.

Siren wailing, lights
flashing, Schmuel careened through traffic. The Cairo International Stadium was a huge facility designed for soccer tournaments capable of seating over 74,000 people. It was hard to miss, even in this built-up part of the city with its high-rise office and apartment buildings that battled with ancient mosques and tenements.

Schmuel cut off the sirens and lights as they approached the main drive. Noa said, “We’re very vulnerable here.”

Hammond: We’ve got some recent satellite footage on it.

“How recent?” Derek asked.

Hammond: Thirty minutes.

“Hope that’s recent enough.”

Irina: Konstantin has a friend in our embassy there who’s been working with small surveillance drones. He’s got one in the air now headed your way. I’m working on tapping into local surveillance cameras. Wait … this is a little complicated, but can you see this?

Looking at a computer monitor, they had an aerial view of the stadium. Glancing out the window of the ambulance, Derek said, “I see something up there. Is that a drone?”

Irina: Konstantin’s friend Boris is running it from about a kilometer away. He’s hoping to get closer. He says there’s something strange in the parking lot near the front entrance.

“Let’s go see,” Derek said.

As they entered the area, Schmuel said, “There’s something over there. Looks like a box, just sort of sitting in the middle of the parking lot.”

“How are we going to do this?” Derek asked.

Noa said, “I want you in a wheelchair in case Nazif’s somehow watching. We want him to underestimate you as much as possible.”

“And if it’s a bomb it won’t matter.”

“Stay operational and shut up,” she said. “Do not go all American cowboy right now.”

Derek tried not to smirk.

Pulling up about twenty yards from the box, Schmuel turned the ambulance so it was pointing away from the box and the stadium entrance. Kadish said, “Schmuel stays behind the wheel. I get the wheelchair ready. Noa covers us. Everybody stay cool.”

Opening the rear doors, Kadish said, “We’ve got a lift. Get in. Cover up. Gun ready. Got the vest on?”

He did. It was a Level
III
-A, which was designed for light combat. Over the years Derek had worn bullet resistant vests that ranged from the lightest to the heaviest armor plated vests. Level
III
-A was in the middle, heavy and thick, but still thin enough to be worn under your shirt if you didn’t mind looking pudgy. It could stop a Magnum round or automatic rifle fire, especially from a distance. He wasn’t fond of it. Short of being in combat situations, he preferred mobility over protection, but this wasn’t a straightforward combat situation.

And the vest wouldn’t protect him at all from an IED.

Kadish pushed Derek onto the lift and activated the button that dropped the motorized deck to the pavement. Gripping the wheels, Derek rolled toward the box. Pushing a wheelchair with a bum shoulder wasn’t the easiest thing he’d ever done, but he managed. The box looked to be about three feet tall and made out of slats of weathered gray wood.

How many times have I been in situations like this, he wondered. Intentionally putting myself in the line of fire.

His heart thudded harder in his chest. The late afternoon sun burned down from above. The air smelled of diesel fuel and hot pavement.

Wheeling closer to the box, he recognized a cheap cellular phone. “It’s a phone.”

Noa: Doesn’t mean the box isn’t rigged.

“Doesn’t mean there isn’t a sniper around here somewhere, either,” he countered.

Irina: We don’t see anything from the drone, but it’s a big stadium and we can’t see everything. Part of it’s in shadows, too.

“This isn’t helping.” He pushed the wheelchair forward and grabbed the phone, prepared for a blast or a bullet.

Nothing happened.

Glancing at his watch he saw it was 3:58.

“I’ve got two minutes if my watch or Nazif’s watch are—”

The phone buzzed in his hand. He almost dropped it.

“Dammit,” he swore. “Practically gave me a heart attack.”

Hammond: That would be irony for you.

Flipping open the phone, Derek held it to his ear, thinking it was possible to place a small charge of C4 or Semtex in a phone that would be enough to blow a hole in your head.

“Yes.”

“Still alive, I see.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you dead.”

“We’ve established that. Your brother’s on his way. He’s probably six or seven hours away from landing in Qatar. If you kill Mandalevo before he lands, there’s nothing stopping them from turning that plane back around and putting him back in Guantanamo. Or shoving him out of the plane somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean.”

“I am aware of that. That is why I’m willing to make a deal with you.”

“I’m listening.”

“They are flying my brother to Qatar. There are closer locations.”

“I’m the wrong guy to try and negotiate this with, dumbass. You’ve got to talk to somebody with the State Department or the Department of Defense. That’s way above my pay grade.”

“I’m sure they’re listening in.”

“I’m sure they’re trying to. What do you want from me, assuming there’s anything to negotiate?”

“If you can guarantee my brother’s safe release, and you meet me alone at a location I let you know about in forty-five minutes, I will provide the location of Secretary Mandalevo.”

Derek clamped down on his desire to tell Nazif that he wasn’t going to meet him anywhere. He’d already come this far. “I will have to relay this information to the embassy, who will—”

“I will call you at 4:45.”

The phone went dead.

“Well, that was totally useless.”

Johnston: Not quite.
NSA
is tracking the phone.

Hammond: I think I might have something useful from the satellite footage, too.

Spinning the wheelchair, Derek headed back to the truck.

Simultaneously, Noa screamed, “Move!”

He bolted out of the wheelchair. A gunshot coughed from a distance. A bullet struck the wheelchair, which jumped. The ricochet whined past.

Racing for the ambulance, his bad leg and injuries slowed him down. Another gunshot pocked at the air. A chunk of pavement split only inches away.

Both Noa and Kadish were outside the ambulance, firing MP5 bursts toward the stadium.

And then something slammed into his back and he smashed into the ground, pain radiating through his body.

Gasping for breath,
he rolled, trying to get to his feet. His back hurt like hell. The vest had stopped it from penetrating—he hoped—but it still felt like getting hit with a sledge hammer. He could barely get to his knees, could barely breathe.

Noa kept firing. Kadish rushed to him, dragged him to his feet and pushed him toward the ambulance, shoving him in the back and jumping in after him. Noa pulled the doors shut and shouted, “Go!”

With a shriek of metal on pavement, Schmuel punched the gas and the ambulance rocketed toward the exit. A hole appeared in the back of the ambulance. Kadish shouted, “
Harah! Harah! Ben Zona! Harah, harah, harah!
”

The bullet had ripped through the thin skin of the ambulance and tore through his thigh, slamming into bone. It was a huge wound, gushing blood, broken bone visible.

As the ambulance careened through the streets Derek shouted, “We need a hospital! Now!”

Grabbing a cloth, he pressed down on the leg. Kadish howled in pain. “Look for a pressure bandage and some QuikClot.” In seconds the cloth was soaked scarlet. Kadish had stopped shouting and seemed dazed. Shock.

“Hurry!”

Colonel Nate Brigham
led four embassy security forces and a half-dozen men from the Egyptian Army who had been told to help out with anything Brigham’s team was doing. His team hadn’t been doing much after the chlorine gas attack, but
RSO
Sholes has given them a head’s-up that Stillwater was up to something and seemed closer to Nazif than anyone else had been. He’d taken a hit of speed and ibuprofen and if his heart didn’t burst, he was good to go.

Sholes had told him that Stillwater and his team didn’t trust the embassy after the
CIA
and the contact in Egyptian intelligence had set him up.

Couldn’t much blame him for that.

But as soon as they heard about the stadium the ten of them had raced there.

And then the shooting started.

Brigham and the entire crew rushed the entrances, racing up the ramps to the higher levels. There were too many ramps, levels, corridors and tunnels, but the sniper must have been at the very top overlooking the entrance.

Off to his right machinegun fire echoed through the stadium.

One of the Egyptians shouted into the microphone in Arabic. Brigham’s Arabic was decent–they had found the shooter.

“Spread out.”

Racing out into the open air from the concrete hallway, he was nearly blinded by green turf, a blue track, blue and white seats, and harsh white sunlight. Spinning, rifle to his shoulder, he sighted around, looking for the ongoing firefight.

Off to his left, three sections over, one section up. He rushed up the metal and concrete steps, boots clanging.

The sniper had hidden himself away behind a concrete pillar. Brigham figured he had a decent cross-section of the stands, but was totally blocked from his right.

From the direction he and two of his team were coming from.

“If at all possible we want him alive,” he muttered into his throat mic.

He slowed down. The Egyptians had discovered they needed cover and chose to hide behind benches and pillars. Occasionally one of them would pop out and fire off a burst at the sniper. The sniper, however, took his time and waited.

Zwang!

A strangled shout and one of the Egyptians collapsed, clutching his neck. Blood sprayed.