Clandestine-IsaacHooke-FreeFollowup (17 page)

Shi frowned. "Your little father approves of this?"

Ethan felt his artificially-thickened brows draw together.
Little father.
Was the man purposely trying to insult him? "Of course not. But what can he do? Disown me?"
 

"Maybe he will," Shi smirked. "Imagine that. The spoiled rich boy, stuck in the Islamic State, unable to go running home to father when this is done."

"Maybe I want to stay," Ethan said.

"After what you said about your home country? I doubt it."

Ethan considered refuting him, but decided to stick with the script. "You're right. I don't plan on staying. I will do my part to fight for my Muslim brothers, but if I survive I will go home."

Shi nodded smugly. "Not a true holy warrior, then."

"Just because I don't want to burn my passport and live in the Caliphate forever doesn't make me any less a holy warrior." Ethan let anger enter his voice. "I fight for Dawlah, but I also have another fight, in my own country. Look around you, and ask yourself, with so many in the world lining up against the Islamic State, will it really last more than five years, if that? Truly ask yourself this question. And when you come to the inescapable conclusion that most likely the Caliphate will not exist, at least not in its current form, then you will realize you have no future in this country. When it falls, and the locals round up the sympathizers like you and execute them, don't blame me. The fault for staying will be your own."

"If you don't believe in them, why do you fight?"

"As I said already, Muslims are dying, and I would be remiss if I didn't come here and defend them. I will do my duty and then I will go home. True, I don't believe the Caliphate will endure in the end, but that doesn't make my effort any less sincere. Or heroic."

Shi sipped his tea for a long moment. "This board you mentioned, it pays well?"

"Extremely."

Shi pressed his lips together. "I will think about it."

Score.

Ethan finished his tea, and then, trying to keep his tone as casual and disinterested as possible, like he was merely making small talk, he said, "So what kind of work are you doing for the Caliphate?"
 

The man stiffened slightly. "Many things. Too complex for a rich boy with your tiny brain to understand. For a
fitness
professional
."
 

Ethan smiled obligingly. "I know a little about nuclear science. Nuclear weapons, specifically. Take some Plutonium-239, some aircraft counterweights to use as shielding, a fishing cooler, packing foam, plastic explosives, blasting caps, firing circuits, and you have all the ingredients for a dirty bomb."

Shi wore a sour expression. "The ingredients, yes," he said with disdain. "But it takes more than ingredients to make a bomb. And for a personal trainer, you know a suspicious amount about nuclear weapons."

"Let's just say I've done my homework. If you procured some lead aprons and film badges to use as dosimeters, I could probably put together the aforementioned ingredients for you. It's really not that hard. That's what you're doing, isn't it? Building a bomb?"
 

Shi shook his head angrily. "You are spouting words whose meaning you know nothing about. You have read something about nuclear weapons in an Al Qaeda or Islamic State propaganda magazine, alongside recipes for making homemade ricin from castor beans, but you could not design a nuclear bomb if your life depended on it. You have no idea how firing circuits work, nor how to time blasting caps. You are a moron."

Ethan smiled politely. Perhaps it would have been better to bring his rifle after all. More intimidating that way. "You forget that my father serves on the board of a nuclear reactor project. I wonder, do you treat all of your prospective employers so poorly during the job interview?"
 

Shi looked away. "I'm sorry. My mouth gets the better of me sometimes."

"No, it's my fault," Ethan said. "I provoked you. I'm actually glad you're fighting for us. We need all the help we can get. You are a Muslim, aren't you?" He glanced at Shi's keffiyeh.
 

The scientist bowed his head in acknowledgment. "I have converted, yes."
 

"So you are waging jihad, too, in your own way."

Shi's eyes gleamed, like he was privy to some secret knowledge. It was a look Ethan had seen often among the mujahadeen.

"I am doing my part," Shi said. "While the foot soldiers fight in the trenches, I am at work designing something that will end this war decisively. Assad and the West are in for a very big surprise in the coming months. We're going to change history."

Ethan felt a chill travel down his spine and he knew in that moment the scientist was absolutely guilty, and must die.

Ethan lowered his voice conspiratorially and leaned across the table. "Do you need help acquiring nuclear materials? I know key personnel involved with the Jordanian reactor project. And certain smugglers..."

Shi laughed disdainfully. "I have my own contacts, but I will keep your offer in mind."

"Plutonium-239?" Ethan said.

"Uranium-235," Shi corrected with a smug smile, apparently enjoying his display of insider knowledge.

But then the grin left Shi's face as he realized he'd said too much. The scientist abruptly pushed his chair from the table. "I must go."

"Wait, aren't you going to give me your email?"

"No." Shi stood.

"How am I supposed to keep in touch with you about the reactor project?"

Shi scribbled something onto a napkin and tossed it on the table, then rejoined his bodyguards.

Ethan considered doing the deed right then with the Makarov hidden in his boot, but decided there would be too many witnesses. Plus he would probably end up in a shootout with the bodyguards.

He let Shi go, and instead glanced at the napkin. A Yahoo email address was written upon it.
 

When Ethan got back to the compound he sent the account ID to Sam along with a monitor request. He mentioned he had proven the target's intent, and that the scientist was looking to smuggle Uranium-235 into the country. It wasn't the fissile supplier like Sam had wanted, but it was the next best thing.
 

The following night he checked his email and found a courtesy message from Sam. Normally she divulged very little information regarding other operations, but on the rare occasion, probably when she felt he could use a morale boost, she told him the positive effects of intel he had sent.

Apparently Yahoo had given her team access to the scientist's account. Most of his messages were innocuous, but a few encrypted emails drew her attention. Though her team hadn't been able to decipher them, the first batch were dated from a time before the scientist had come to Syria, and were likely from Islamic State recruiters. The later batch of encrypted messages had been sent from Syria to Chinese addresses. Sam had the owners of the destination email addresses traced, and determined most of them belonged to employees of a trading company in China that was currently under investigation for illegally shipping weapons components into Pakistan. It was very likely the fissile supplier.

She signed her message with:
Well done.
 

It would be up to her and the Agency to intercept the fissile material. Meanwhile Ethan would do his part in Syria: since Sam hadn't mentioned any modifications to the termination objective, the hit was still a go.

He logged out and left the compound. It was late evening, after the fifth prayer of the day, and he had some things to do before curfew.

E
than made his way through the busy fashion district. Power had been made available to most of the city that night as a "gift" for good behavior, and the residents were out in force. Cars and taxis jockeyed for position on the road, honking almost constantly. Pedestrians moved to and fro among the sidewalks, the neon lights of the clothing stores vying for their attention alongside the street vendors with their greasy fares of falafel and shawarma.
 

Ethan moved on to a quieter neighborhood near the old cemetery. The working street lamps made the area feel safer than on previous occasions. He passed two Islamic State checkpoints and reached his destination a few minutes later.

He studied the apartment building, picking out Shi's balcony on the second floor. It was covered in a canopy like the other balconies—that ruled out sniping the scientist while he was home at night. The glow from within told him the man was still awake. Probably getting in some good laptop time while he could.
 

Ethan's gaze drifted to the canopied balcony beside it. Alzena's. Perhaps he could use her apartment to abet the hit.

He decided against it. For her safety, it was better to minimize her involvement from that point forward. Besides, she was a distraction. He had been thinking about her much too often these past few days.
 

He returned his attention to Shi's balcony. Ethan could go inside and attempt to kill the man directly, but with the bodyguards present, he gauged his chances of success at around fifty percent. No, better to take the guaranteed shot. The sniper shot.

He had two options, as far as the timing of the hit went. He could perform it at noon, when Shi left the apartment. Or at eight o'clock, when the scientist returned. The entrance was poorly lit compared to the rest of the street, so that even if the power was active the night of the operation, Ethan would need a night vision scope—which he didn't have. That ruled out the evening option. But even if he performed it in the day, he needed a proper sniping location...
 

The closed bakery behind him was housed in the first floor of a three-story apartment building—the second and third floors were residential suites. Ethan walked to the main entrance and pressed a few of the intercom buttons. The ongoing power meant those buttons still worked.
 

The initial person to answer, a mean-sounding lady, refused to let him in. Ethan pretended he had a delivery but she didn't believe him. The second voice that came over the intercom belonged to a grumpy old man who promptly told Ethan to stuff his dick in a camel.

Ethan retrieved the credit-card sized leather case from his pocket. During his Afghan and Iraq deployments, lockpicking had become a hobby. There had been so much downtime between missions that he'd become a master—at one point he'd ordered almost every practice lock out there and could beat each of them in under thirty seconds.
 

But he'd let the skill slide. His deep cover operations made it hard to acquire the locks he needed to practice. Still, like driving or skiing, it wasn't a skill you lost entirely.

He took out the three bump keys that were supposedly designed for Syrian locks. He glanced in either direction, confirmed that no one was around, then tried all three.

The first two wouldn't even enter the lock, while the third only partially fit. He used his phone as a mallet to tap the key anyway, applying a small amount of torque in an attempt to catch the pins outside the locking mechanism. No good.
 

He could have made his own bump key by taking a picture of the keyhole and marking the depth of each pin with one of his picks, then sending a mockup to a 3D print service like Shapeways or KeyMe and getting the key couriered to Syria, but why bother when he had the skill to pick the lock?

Ethan replaced the bump keys and chose one of the picks, basically a thin file with a hook on the end, and set to work. After a frustrating couple of minutes, he chose another pick and tried "raking" the lock by placing the tool all the way in, right to the back, and applying torque while slowly drawing it out. That did the trick.

Inside, Ethan ignored the cramped, ancient elevator, worried that it might trap him between floors if the power went out, and he took the stairwell instead.

The rooftop door proved locked. He tried the bump keys. The first was a perfect fit. A few taps of his cellphone later and Ethan was on the open terrace.

He made his way between the blocky rooftop water tanks and television antennas. When he reached the ledge, he had a clear view of the apartment building across the street. The poorly lit main entrance was in plain view. The sun would be overhead and slightly behind him at noon. Basically the perfect spot to perform the hit.

He lined up his scope with Shi's balcony, but as expected he couldn't see through the thick canopy. He set aside the Dragunov, grabbed his TruPulse 360 and did a quick range check on the lower entrance. It was difficult in the low light, but eventually he got the finder lined up with the lobby. Thirty-three meters. An extremely easy shot with the 4x scope.
 

He crossed to the rear of the rooftop. There was a shared courtyard in back, hemmed in by neighboring apartment buildings. In the dim light he made out a shoulder-high cinder block fence, blocking off the far side. That courtyard would serve as a good exfil route, because he certainly wasn't going to leave by the front door after completing the hit. Too bad there was no fire escape. He returned downstairs—there was no way to get to the courtyard from the lobby, either. That complicated things, but not overly so.
 

Ethan visited the supply room in the barracks the next morning to inquire about rope. The Syrian on duty explained there was none left, and no inventory was forthcoming for a few weeks. Since the man also ran the black market currency service, Ethan obtained the equivalent of five hundred US dollars in Syrian pounds. He wanted to exchange more, but the Syrian didn't have enough on him.
 

When Ethan got back from checkpoint duty that night he left a quick encrypted message for Mufid telling the clothing store owner to secure him a static climbing rope, one centimeter in diameter, fifty meters in length, or, barring that, several vehicular tow ropes that could be strung together. He instructed the man to be at his shop at eight o'clock in the evening the next day to deliver them.