Countdown to Mecca (6 page)

In normal times, Captain Reynolds—the man Anastasia Vincent had dubbed “Pallor”—wouldn't be anywhere near his alma mater. But these were not normal times.

What he and the others were trying to do had been described as “ambitious” by some members of the team, “crazy” by others. Whether it succeeded depended on how well they all completed their assignments. Reynolds had taken great personal pride in his end of the mission: securing the orthorhombic element they needed, getting it on a passenger aircraft rather than a military transport, smuggling it out of Russia, ditching the aircraft on the Caspian Sea, and conveying it by motorized raft to the Azerbaijani shore.

The plan was flawless. Had something gone wrong with the execution?

“At least it's a beautiful day for a hanging,” Colonel Andrew “Bull's-eye” Taylor—the man Anastasia thought of as “Kid”—smirked. As usual, his attitude grated on Morton's nerves. He was the spoiled scion of a wealthy family sliding through life with a smug grin on his face.

“Shut up, Bull's-eye,” Morton snapped. “You know your wisecracks don't fly with the General.”

“The way he sounded, I'll be surprised if anything will be flying with the General anymore,” Taylor said to Morton. “Don't you know when you've been summoned to an execution?”

Silence settled on the three men, unremarkable in their tweed shooting clothes. They made their way onto the United States Military Academy's outdoor rifle range, arriving at the ordered time.

General Thomas Brooks, also in a tweed jacket, was standing at the outdoor rifle table lined with Browning, Caesar Guerini, and Winchester shotguns. A solid, square, man with the swept-back gray hair and a lined, wind-burnished face, he looked at the three with flinty eyes. Bull's-eye felt the man's power, even when he didn't want to. Here was a soldier who became a three-star general by doing incredibly brave acts that verged on insanity—insanity that could just as easily be focused on his subordinates.

“I know what you're thinking,” he told them in his gravelly voice. “‘Is this wise, General? Should we be seen together?'” Brooks hefted his Remington 1100 and rested it on his shoulder as if on a parade ground. “Well, RHIP.” They all knew what that meant: Rank Has Its Privileges. “How do you keep people from noticing a group of West Point graduates? You put them in a place where people are accustomed to seeing them.”

Bull's-eye felt even more anxious now. There was no one around.

“You ordered us here, General,” Morton said. “We're here. What's this about?”

“What is this about?” Brooks said softly, ominously. “Firebird is fine, if that's what concerns you.”

That was both good news and bad news. At once, the other three men knew what this was about.

“‘I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve,'” Brooks quoted, as if Morton hadn't spoken. “‘Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.' Who said that?”

He looked into the face of each man. Reynolds seemed to look back at him but, in fact, his gaze wavered between the general's eyebrows and eyelashes. Bull's-eye looked around, like a soldier on point. Only Morton stared back defiantly, his lips tight.

“The Quran, sir,” Morton replied sharply. “Verse 8:12. Just one of the more than one hundred verses that call Muslims to war with what they call ‘nonbelievers.'”

“And who do they call ‘nonbelievers'?” Brooks asked.

“Anyone who isn't Muslim,” Reynolds interrupted. “Quran 5:51 states that Muslims are not to take Jews and the Christians for friends. Allah describes them as ‘unjust people.'”

“The Quran invokes ‘kill the infidel' a hundred and twenty times,” Brooks said quietly, almost to himself. He gazed at the empty sky. “What kind of sane nation permits these people to practice such open hatred?”

“Sir,” Morton said. “I thought we were here to discuss Firebird—”

General Thomas Brooks, U.S. Strategic Command, lowered his Remington shotgun and fired a warning blast of scattershot at Reynolds's foot. Reynolds's shins caught a few ricocheting pellets.

Morton and Bull's-eye stiffened. Reynolds fell to one knee, but by sheer force of will he did not scream. After a moment, as the shock fled and pain struck he hissed, then grit his teeth, then slammed both fists into the ground.

Brooks didn't even look at him. Instead he locked eyes with Morton.

“We are planning to detonate a super-weapon in Mecca and you spend weeks—
weeks!
—screwing around with whores?”

Thoughts shot through Morton's head like spears. “That was my fault, not—”

“How do you know I'm finished?” Brooks seethed.

Morton's lips clapped shut. It had been on the news: the pursuit, the shoot-out. But the incident had been scrubbed. There was nothing to tie it to them. The assassins had gone to ground, medical attention was very private, provided by a doctor who asked no questions. General Brooks was never to know.

“You were very thorough covering your tracks,” Brooks said. He stepped forward. “Am I unfamiliar with men under stress? FDR had eyes on Ike to make sure he didn't crack before D-Day. Didn't you think I'd have someone watching
you
all once we pulled the trigger on this?”

Morton drew air through his nostrils.

“Thom, we took precautions,” he pleaded honestly. “I couldn't discuss Firebird with my family. None of us could.”

“I do not tolerate weakness. Or indulgence. Or
incompetence
! You're still needed,” Brooks stressed, then looked toward Bull's-eye. “As are you.” He looked sadly at Reynolds, who stared back with bloodshot eyes. “Your part of the task was complete. And done well, or you would be dead now rather than crippled.” He looked back at Morton. “No more mistakes. Secure the mission
and
its personnel.”

Then he turned heel and walked away without another word.

As he left, the other men exhaled audibly, no one louder than Reynolds who bent to examine his wound.

They were committed and they were loyal. Morton would rectify his double mistake—consorting with escorts, then not making sure their threat was not contained. He would rectify it with a vengeance.

 

5

San Francisco, California

Jack was now at the wheel, his eyes on the road—and everywhere else, alert for a possible ambush. The police didn't seem to mind that they were speeding; the patrol cars were all racing in the opposite direction, where at least two dozen 911 calls had told them to go. In the passenger's seat, Sol was giving hushed orders on the phone. Jack was on his own hands-free device, waiting. Moments later, the woman Jack had called and given short, precise instructions came back on.

“Done,” she said.

“Thanks, Dover,” Jack said. “Talk to you later.” Jack thought about her ultra-thin, athletic body and felt a slight heat run through his head. She was built like a greyhound he thought and cut himself off as he remembered some of their intimacies. It had taken him most of his adult life and many women for him to understand what turned him over and on. He only lusted after her.

Jack took one hand off the wheel to press
END CALL
. He handed Sol the phone. Sol looked at the information and entered it in his own phone.

“Is that ‘gal' as in ‘Gal Friday' or—” Sol grinned as he worked the keypad.

“Her name's Dover Griffith and she's a friend,” Jack said.

“Is that all we get?” Sammy teased.

Jack did not respond. His brother was trying to be brotherly. Jack didn't want that from him; not now. There was still too much bad history between them to just let it go.

“I can give you more,” Sol said. “She's a high-ranking FBI agent, former Department of Naval Intelligence analyst. She's spent some time with Mr. Hatfield here and his mercenary special ops buddy Doc Matson.”

Jack looked at him critically. “How do you do it?”

“What? Get intel on people who may be sniffing around my operation.”

“No, I mean, sleep with one eye open so you can watch everyone who comes and goes from this town.”

Sol shrugged. “I like it. I like the fact that my computer hacker can get through anything the FBI or SFPD or anyone else throws up. Life is a game, Jack. If you take it more seriously than that, you're dead.”

“I like that,” Ana said.

“Thank you, wolf eyes.”

“No,” Ana said. “I like that Jack was letting her know he's all right.”

Sol was still watching Jack. “I don't think Mr. Hatfield here is that sentimental,” he said. “The firefight at the apartment and in the street set off alarms all over the city. Someone had to run interference. Dover is it. What's she doing, filing eyewitness reports that have us going in the opposite direction?”

Jack frowned. “You give me a pain.”

“And you love it,” Sol said.

They were both right. Dover was also searching the files for any reference to “Firebird,” but Jack did not bother sharing that.

Sammy was scowling. “After what you've done for this town, Jack, I would've thought they'd given you a direct line to the commissioner by now.”

“Some may give me grudging, private respect, but most think I'm some sort of right-wing vigilante just because I tell the truth. How many bombs have to go off before they accept that all Islam is inherently radical?”

“I know how you feel,” Sol said. “People judge me, too.”

Jack glared at him. “That's because you're a lawless smuggler of contraband.”

“See?” Sol said. “I'm also a man whose word is gold and who will risk his life for people he doesn't know. Isn't that how you want people to see you?”

All Jack could say was, “Touch
é
.”

A moment later he slid into the parking slot designated for his forty-ton, fifty-nine-foot long Grand Banks Yacht. Jack felt relieved at the sight of it, swaying gently in the moonlight that was dappling gems on Richardson Bay. Inside, Eddie was probably wondering what was taking his master so long. The poor poodle probably needed a good ear scratching, walk, and doggy treat or two though the sound and smell of strangers might send him hiding in the portside cabinet in Jack's stateroom.

Jack's tired legs were pulling him from the car when he heard Anastasia inhale sharply. He turned to see the woman's lupine eyes peering beyond him, pointing at the yacht. All three men, now out of the car and positioned around her at the edge of the quay, looked toward the harbor.

“There's someone inside that boat,” Anastasia stated, lowering her arm. “I saw a shadow.”

Jack looked ahead. The boat was dark but the ambient light of the quay kept it from being black. If someone were onboard, they might be visible against the vessel's muddy silhouette.

“Wait here,” Sammy said, snatching the Kel-Tec from the seat and starting forward.

“Wait!” Jack said.

But it was too late. Sammy sprinted ahead. Whether it was an inflated sense of Marine chivalry or personal recrimination for having needed the help of his brother and a mobster, he was already halfway to the yacht. Jack set off after him. By the time he reached the
Sea Wrighter,
Sammy had already sprinted onboard. Jack jumped from the slip onto his boat and burst into the entryway salon just in time to see Sammy Hatfield aiming the Kel-Tec at the grizzled face of a tall, lanky, white-haired man.

Sammy was looking anything but triumphant, however. In fact he looked like he had just about stepped on a rattlesnake. That long-limbed, grizzled, snowy-haired man was pressing an eleven-inch, .45 caliber, Ruger Vaquero single-action revolver right between Sammy's eyes.

“Well, I guess we're all in the same boat, now,” drawled Doc Matson.

Jack motioned the others over and made the hasty introductions before he acknowledged Eddie, who had been sitting patiently on his haunches, his little tail sweeping the hardwood floor. Finally, Jack scooped to pick him up.

“I'm pleased to meet you, Doc,” Sol said. “I understand you're a crack mercenary—”

“Who tries to work within the law,” Jack added, rising.

Doc smirked. “Laws change from land to land. You're
the
Sol Minsky?”

“I am.”

“Do you have a way into North Korea by sea?”

“Jesus,” Jack said, shaking his head.

“What?” Doc shot back. “May have my next job lined up.”

“Your next job is already here,” Jack said.

“So Dover said when she asked me to meet you,” Doc replied.

“That was, what, five minutes ago!” Sammy interjected. “What did you do, parachute in?”

That made Ana laugh, which made Sammy beam.

“I live nearby,” he said and left it at that.

“Cautious,” Sol said. “Even among friends.”

“Aren't you?”

“Occasionally,” Sol replied drily.

They all heard a car pull up outside. Jack dropped Eddie, who scurried under an armchair as if he were trained for trouble, while Jack sidled toward the still-open doorway. Four nondescript men in dark suits were easing from a dark blue minivan and heading for the Mercedes. Sol shouldered past Jack.

“Donnie, get rid of that thing,” Sol said, softly but firmly. “If anyone tries to stop you, especially in a Ford Explorer, break bones and take names.”

The crew on the boat watched as the men got into Sol's car and drove off. Jack knew it was destined for a chop shop. He was impressed by their new wheels: despite its almost imperceptibly tinted one-way windows, the minivan wouldn't look out of place at a kids' soccer game.

Jack had heard the mobster giving instructions on the phone while he waited for Dover to make some important calls. They were headed to a mob safe house.