Vengeance: A Derek Stillwater Novel (Derek Stillwater Thrillers Book 8) (25 page)

Making eye contact with his people, Brigham directed Simmons to circle around to the left, Jacobsen to the right. He would go straight forward.

Slowly.

The sniper’s attention was on the other Egyptians. At least they had him pinned down.

Brigham crouched down. He did not have a clear shot at the sniper, who was partially hidden behind the concrete pillar. But every few seconds the sniper took a step back.

For this mission Brigham had chosen an M16A4 with a scope. He was about fifty yards away from the sniper.

Might as well be point-blank.

The sniper fired at one of the Egyptians.

Then stepped back.

Brigham squeezed the trigger.

The sniper screamed and collapsed, clutching his leg.

Brigham’s team rushed forward. In seconds they had the sniper secured.

Joining them, he looked down at the man. It wasn’t Nazif. That had probably been too much to ask for.

Noa, pulse rushing in her
ears, gently pushed Derek aside. Slapping QuikClot onto Kadish’s wound, she skipped the step of a pressure bandage and applied a tourniquet. The wound was too serious and bleeding too intense. “How close are we to the hospital?” she called to Schmuel.

“Couple blocks. How’s he doing?”

“Alive, but it’s pretty bad.”

“Almost there.”

Tightening the tourniquet, she saw that much of the bleeding had slowed thanks to the coagulant. Glancing at Derek, she saw him wince in pain as they hit a pothole.

“How bad’s your back?” she asked.

“Bad,” he said.

Like most people, men and women, who made it through Special Forces training in any military, Derek was tough with a high pain tolerance. Just today she had seen everything he could deal with. She couldn’t decide if he was extraordinarily determined or obsessive. There was a fine line between the two and she suspected Derek crossed it a long time ago.

And what did she know about him? An intense experience in Afghanistan two decades ago? A day or so this week? A look at a Top Secret dossier compiled by Mossad?

And then they were pulling into the Emergency Department entrance of the Mohammed Youssef Mousa Hospital. She pushed thoughts of Derek out of her mind and concentrated on the job at hand. Schmuel was talking to the staff. She and Derek levered Kadish onto a gurney. Derek grimaced, bent over.

“Anything broken?”

“Hopefully just bruising.”

Noa and Schmuel dealt with the hospital officials. When she turned around, Derek was nowhere to be seen. She found him standing out front of the hospital, talking into the phone.

Sholes: They’ve picked
up your sniper. He claims they’ve taken the Secretary to a safe house near the Hotel Concorde. The Egyptians are sending out people to scour the area now.

“Hope it’s a real lead,” Derek said. He was skeptical. So far all the information the Egyptians had gotten out of members of the Nazif Brigade had been traps. He told her so.

Sholes: Noted. What’s your plan now?

“I don’t have one. I’ll get back to you.” He looked at Noa. “Khadish is probably in surgery. Do we have anything else besides what the sniper says?”

Hammond: Maybe.

“Okay,” Derek said. “Signing off.”

Sholes: Wait—

Hammond: I don’t think she likes it when you do that.

“I don’t care. She’s awesome, but she’s in a building filled with people who would gladly trade me for Bob. What’ve you got?”

Hammond: Jim and I have been analyzing the commercial satellite footage. Backtracking the vehicles that came and went around the stadium. We’re pretty sure we identified the one that dropped off your sniper and the box. So we followed it back. It gets a little confusing, but we’re fairly certain it went very close to the Ministry of Defense. It’s not that far from the
International Stadium.

“You’re saying Nazif is working with someone at the Ministry of Defense?”

Johnston: No, we don’t think so. But consider this, Derek. The other attack was on the Armed Forces Mosque. Your own report about your interview with Abdul Nazif at Gitmo indicates a lot of hostility toward the Egyptian military on the part of
Hussein Nazif.

Irina: Our analysis of the phone call you just received puts Nazif very close to that location.

Derek looked at Noa. “Should we head over there?”

She nodded. “Schmuel will stay here with Kadish. I can drive.”

“We’re on our way. But something a little more detailed would be helpful.”

Irina: Boris’s drone is headed that way now.

“Flying a drone over the Ministry of Defense? That ought to go well.” He and Noa headed for the ambulance. “Patch Sholes back in, okay?”

After a moment the Security head was back on the line, frothing at the mouth. “What the hell is your problem, Stillwater?”

“Have Brigham call me. We’ll update you shortly.”

Sholes: Don’t you—

“Um,” Derek said. “Did someone cut her off?”

Irina: I did.

“Oh.” He cocked an eyebrow at Noa. “Um, thanks.”

Irina: My pleasure.

Brigham called him
back. “Sholes is a bit pissed at you.”

“I have no problem with her except that I’m not confident that what I tell her doesn’t get passed on to the
CIA
guy. Him I don’t trust.”

“O’Bannon? Hmmm. Yeah, I can see that. Keeping in mind that Sholes is my boss, what do you want?”

“I want to know that if I ask you for help you won’t go running to O’Bannon.”

“That’s a given. I don’t answer to him.”

Derek told him where they were headed and said they wanted some backup. “Think you can do it without drawing a crowd?”

“Be there in about twenty minutes. And Stillwater? Don’t get killed or blown up before my team arrives, okay? I owe you that much.”

“No promises.”

The Ministry of
Defense was a complex of buildings in Nasr City, a particularly modern district of Cairo, with high rises and condominiums, malls and modern construction. Ever since the Arab Spring the year before access had been limited, with barbed-wire set up around many of the buildings.

Derek gestured at a gold pyramid-like structure as they approached. “What’s that?”

“The Unknown Soldier Memorial,” Noa said. “It’s also where Anwar Sadat is buried.” Anwar Sadat had been the President of Egypt until he was assassinated by army officers in 1981. Derek was a little fuzzy on the history, but he was pretty sure Sadat had been involved in the overthrow of King Farouk before him. Egypt’s recent history of political secession wasn’t particularly peaceful.

As they approached the Ministry of Defense, he said, “Okay. We’re here, but
here
is a pretty big space. Where should we go?”

Hammond: Where are you?

Noa said, “El Tayaran Street, between the Abeer Al Eslam Mosque and the Ministry of Defense complex.”

Hammond: Jim wants to talk to you in private. Irina?

Irina: In five … okay, now.

Johnston came on the phone line. “Here’s the deal,” Johnston said. “We think that Nazif at one point in the last hour was on the grounds of the Ministry of Defense. Over on the other side of the compound from where you are, closer to Ahmed Tayseer, we backtracked a vehicle from the stadium back to the Ministry of Defense. From our satellite footage there are a lot of military vehicles in that area. We backtracked a little bit to see the van we think Nazif was in arrive, but we lost it going back further.”

“If you’re suggesting we sneak into these grounds, you’re crazy,” Derek said, looking over the facility. “That’s a little bit like trying to sneak into the Pentagon.”

Johnston sighed. “Um, no, we’re not. I made a telephone call just a little while ago to, um, an old friend from my days in the Army.”

“Am I going to like this?”

“I phoned General el-Sisi.”

“Jesus Christ, Jim! He’s the head of the Egyptian military.”

“Yes. He wasn’t when we knew each other. And my contacting him directly would not be appreciated by the current administration. Anyway, I’ve told him that you’ll be there and he or someone with his staff is going to meet you there.”

Rolling his eyes at Noa, Derek said, “If they arrest me and turn me over to Nazif I’m going to be seriously pissed at you.”

“Trust me on this.”

“I trust you. Do you trust el-Sisi?” As he said these words he saw several vehicles heading toward them, including what looked to be an armored personnel carrier.

“Reasonably well.”

“Give me a percentage.”

“Eighty-nine percent.”

Well, it could be worse, Derek thought. “I think they’re here now. Patch us back in. And Sholes, too.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Fuck no. Do it anyway.”

In a few seconds he had everyone on the line. Derek quickly explained what was happening.

Sholes: The general was the one who recommended Ali Urabi. Which is how O’Bannon got into the middle of things.

“This is sounding better and better. If I end up in prison shortly, please have Brigham work with my team, if at all possible. Company just arrived.”

Two uniformed soldiers
with assault rifles approached the ambulance. Derek said, “Stay here.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Give you time to drive away if necessary.”

“Derek—”

He pushed open the door and clambered out of the ambulance, back protesting. Face twisting in pain, he walked around the front of the ambulance, hands out to his side.

One of the soldiers said something in Arabic. Derek shook his head.

Leaning out the window, Noa said, “He asked if you’re Derek Stillwater.”

“Yes,” he said, nodding.

The other soldier, in English, said, “We would like both of you to join the general in the carrier.” He gestured to the armored personnel carrier.

“I would prefer that my partner stay in her vehicle.”

The soldier frowned, walked back to the carrier and spoke through a window, then returned. “Very well.”

Derek slowly followed the soldier back to the armored personnel carrier. The door opened and Derek slid into the seat opposite the man he recognized as General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Commander-in-Chief and Minister of Defence and Military Production of the Egyptian military.

“Ms. Shoshan does not wish to join us?”

“Not at the moment,” Derek said.

The general held out a hand and Derek shook it. El-Sisi said, “Jim Johnston speaks highly of you. It has been quite a few years since we spoke. He tells me that if anyone can solve this problem, it would be you.”

“Maybe.”

“Is there a reason I should not take you into custody and announce that we will trade you for Secretary Mandalevo? If the secretary were to be released, even if you were killed in the process, many problems would be solved.”

“Aside from my unwillingness to do so and the ill will that would generate between Egypt and the U.S. Secretary of State?”

El-Sisi shrugged and splayed his hands. “It is one solution. What do you want?”

“Johnston and my team in general believe Nazif or someone with the Brigade traveled recently onto the grounds here.”

The general was probably a good poker player, but the surprise showed on his face. “What evidence do they have of this?”