One Rough Man (49 page)

One of the pilots responded, “Yeah, there’re a couple of car rental places inside. The terminal’s small, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

I wanted to start barking out orders but held back, waiting on Knuckles.

“Okay,” he said, “pilots stay here, ready to move. Keep the helo on strip alert, because we’re probably coming back fast. Be prepared to flex to Tuzla. If I see the security’s too tight, we’ll exfil from there with the package. Retro, you and Jennifer go find a couple of rental cars. Something big enough to carry up to two more men than we have. You know what we’re looking for.”

Jennifer and the man called Retro had started to leave when one of the pilots shouted, “Wait. I’ll go with you.” Jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Knuckles, he said, “He always wants ‘strip alert,’ but we usually end up sitting around for days, begging for food from anyone who passes by. I’ll get a car for us as well.”

After they left, Knuckles asked me, “Well, what do you think? What’s the play? Go in hard right now?”

He was doing all the right things, taking input from everyone, making me a little proud for no reason whatsoever.

“No. I think we should get the cars and conduct a recce to get a feel for what we’re dealing with. From there we can make a plan.”

Knuckles nodded. “Yeah, I agree.” He started giving orders. “Break out the visor cams. We don’t have a lot of time to go pure clandestine, so don’t worry about a deep install.”

Jennifer and Retro returned in two beat-up sedans within twenty minutes, with the pilot right behind them. No sooner had they exited the cars than four men began rigging one for clandestine surveillance. Using four cameras the size of lipstick tubes, they hid them in the upholstery and fed the lines into a digital recording device. The cameras would give a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view around the chassis, allowing detailed planning against the target.

While the car was being rigged, Knuckles and I studied a map of the target area with Bull, the man he had selected to conduct the reconnaissance. Knuckles had picked him because he most closely resembled the indigenous population, and I’d given him the leather jacket I’d bought as additional camouflage.

Knuckles asked me, “You ever been here? What’re the neighborhoods like? Is it like Fallujah where everyone knows you don’t belong?”

“I haven’t been in that neighborhood, but you know the city’s a significant tourist attraction, at least as far as Bosnia goes. I’d say that most of the tourist stuff is centered on the sights downtown but they probably see strangers quite a bit all over the place. It’s probably not suspicious to drive by, especially just once.”

An idea hit me. “Hey, why don’t you take Jennifer as some eye candy? She’s pretty good under stress, and she’s already dressed like a Bosnian woman. She’ll lower the profile if she’s in the car. If they have some sort of early warning going on, they won’t suspect a couple.”

Knuckles chewed the idea over for a few seconds. “Yeah, that’ll work. Bull, you got an issue with that?”

“No. It’s not like we’re going into a gunfight. She’ll be much more of an asset than a liability.”

I saw Jennifer getting a little aggravated with the talk going back and forth, as if she weren’t there or didn’t have a vote.

“You game for that?” Knuckles asked her. “All you’d have to do is ride and keep your eyes open.”

She said, “Yes. I can do that. Thanks for asking. I figured you were just going to tie me to the front seat no matter what I said.”

Knuckles looked at me like he was going to scrub her participation.

“She’s good to go,” I said, smiling at her. “She just likes to be the one telling people what to do. She doesn’t listen to me either.”

Jennifer purposely ignored me. “You’re Bull, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want me to do?”

 

 

BAKR PLACED THE FINISHING TOUCHES on his explosive package, attempting to make it as unobtrusive as possible. Ordinarily he would have embedded the entire device in ball bearings and nails in an effort to create as much death and destruction as possible. In this case, all he wanted to do was disperse his Tupperware container of death without destroying it. He opted not to build a suicide vest but to utilize the backpack he already had.

His biggest challenge was creating enough of an explosive effect to distribute the toxin over as large an area as possible without actually destroying it in the fire and pressure of the explosion itself. It was a delicate Catch-22. Go too large, and all he would get was an explosion that consumed the toxin. Go too small and he would kill very few people. Luckily, he’d had in-depth instruction on how to tamp the material and protect it from the fire of the explosion as well as how to maximize the downwind hazard once the poison was airborne.

Taping down the blasting caps, he heard a vehicle approach down the road. He had been in the house for over an hour and hadn’t heard a single car yet. He paused his work and went upstairs to the window. He relaxed, seeing a beat-up sedan pass by with a Bosnian man and woman inside. They paid his house no attention whatsoever. He returned to the device, connecting his special detonator to the blasting caps.

L
ucas wondered how far he could push his second-tier team. He decided to opt with their strengths: full-on frontal assault. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that, as he had to assume that Mason’s team was on Pike right this moment, tracking him for the kill. He asked his tech man what was taking so long for a beacon fix, only to be told for the third time that the pager track download was locked up. He took a deep breath and let it out, asking again, “How much longer is this going to take?”

“It’s rebooting now. Shouldn’t be but a few more minutes.”

Lucas walked in a small circle, physically forcing himself to remain patient. The men returned from the rental agency, driving an SUV and a sedan. Together, they were large enough to hold the team plus equipment and perhaps one more person. The vehicles blended into the traffic around the airport, pleasing Lucas with the selection.
Figured they’d bring back a convertible mustang or a two-seater Porsche. Maybe I’m selling them short.

One of the drivers said, “Somebody just beat us to the counter. This is all they had available, but they should work.”

Lucus mentally rolled his eyes.
So much for thinking they made a conscious decision.

 

 

KNUCKLES PAUSED THE VIDEO at the target house, seeing the same two-story style with a courtyard in the back that appeared all over the area. The front of the house was clean, with a clear path to the door. No parked cars or fences to worry about. It was located on the east side of the street, with houses on both sides and behind it.

“What were the atmospherics of the neighborhood?”

“Quiet,” Bull said. “In fact, we didn’t see a single automobile. A couple of pedestrians and a few folks tending gardens, but definitely not a hopping place.”

Knuckles stared at the still image. “All right. I don’t want to do a mounted assault. We do an offset on the main thoroughfare to the east, then conduct a dismounted movement to the target from the south, the opposite direction of the recce drive-by. We move in two groups. One takes squirter control in the rear, the other enters the house from the front.”

Knuckles paused for questions, then continued. “Remember, we don’t know what’s in this house, so we can’t treat it as a hostile force. Discriminate on every target. We don’t want to end up killing some old housewife.”

Knuckles finished the briefing by splitting the team, putting me on squirter control.
Out of the fight again.
I didn’t argue, knowing he was right.

I moved off to the rear of the lead car, checking my weapon and spare magazine placement, working to ensure I could reload in a minimum amount of time. Jennifer walked over, tentatively asking, “Hey, I’m not trying to bug you, but I didn’t understand any of that.”

I continued working on my kit. “Based on what you guys are saying about the traffic in the area, we don’t want to drive right up to the target. We’ll park on the main road to the east, then walk there. It should help us remain undetected. Me and another guy will move to the back to catch what we call squirters—really just a name for anyone trying to run. We’ll lock down the back of the house while the team enters from the front.”

Jennifer nodded absently, looking distinctly uncomfortable at how fast this was progressing.

“Relax,” I said. “Your job’s over. Don’t worry about us. We do this for a living.”

I heard the other men beginning to load the cars. “See you in a few minutes.”

She locked eyes with me, saying, “Please be careful. Let them do the hard stuff. Don’t do anything heroic. Don’t let Carlos blow you up.”

“Cut that shit out. You should be worrying about him.”

I started to get in our car when she grabbed me by the arm, “Pike, I’m serious. You might have nine lives, but you’ve been going through them like a chain-smoker. A life can only have so much luck. We’re both working on credit now. I can feel it. Promise you’ll be careful.”

I looked at her, realizing she was deeply worried.

“I’ll be careful. This’ll be all right. Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” she said, with a hint of a smile. “A little, anyway. It’s just that you’re acting different. I can’t put a finger on it, but it’s like you now think you’re invincible. You used to be an asshole about everything, sure it was failure. Now you act like this is all just a ride at Disneyland.”

“Hey, this is what I do. I’ve been killing terrorists a helluva lot longer than I’ve known you. Sorry if I get a kick out of it, but don’t tell me to go back to what I was. You don’t like it, I’m sorry. But
this
is who I am.”

She recoiled, and I knew I had missed the point. The hurt and pain in her expression reminded me of Heather the last night I had seen her. I remembered what I had said after Jennifer had thought Carlos was going to kill her in the hotel—
It’s never just about you.

“Jennifer, listen to me. Carlos is about to kill a lot of people. We’re the only ones who can stop him. And I mean
we
are the only ones who can stop him. You and me. You saved my life, and I don’t mean just today. There’s got to be a reason for that. I don’t want to die any more than you do, but I’m the one that’s here, and I’m the one that’s got the skill to kill that asshole. You know I can’t promise nothing bad’s gonna happen, but if it does, you need to believe it was worth it. Okay?”

She sighed. “Yeah, okay. Just don’t do anything stupid. Please. Before you jump off of a building, remember you can’t fly. Can you do that? For me?”

“Sure. But you need a better analogy, because I
can
fly.”

“Smartass,” she said. “Good luck.”

T
he tech man got Lucas’s attention. “He’s right here in Sarajevo. About three klicks from the airport and moving east.”

About fucking time
. He addressed the entire team. “Listen up. We aren’t going to do any fancy work over here. If we execute, it’ll be a simple frontal assault, but hopefully it won’t come to that. Mason’s team’s in-country, and presumably tracking Pike right now. The last thing I want to do is screw up an operation he’s already executing.”

One of the men cut in. “So we’re just backup for Mason?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I can’t get in touch with Mason or his team, and I don’t want to lose the targets again. If we can’t link up with them, we’ll get a fix on the beacon and hit Pike and the girl ourselves.”

He saw the team start to grin, apparently anticipating an easy kill and the bonus that went along with it. “Don’t get a hard-on yet. I’ve told you what happened in D.C. Remember that. This isn’t a cake-walk. We close in on him and take him out with overwhelming force. I’m not risking another complicated operation. We smoke him and the girl, then immediately head back here and catch the first thing flying home.”

Lucas gave the team a minute to break their weapons out and kit up, then said, “All right. Let’s move. Remember what I said. You might think you’re a killer, but this guy really is.”

Twenty minutes later, Lucas’s team idled in the parking lot of a restaurant on the northern end of Sarajevo. They had traveled the entire length of the city, the cars spreading out on the surface roads in an attempt to contact Mason and his team by both cell phone and radio. They had failed, and now Lucas had a choice to make.
I can spend my time trying to find Mason, or I can spend my time trying to kill Pike.

He decided to execute the mission with the second-tier team, since he had no idea how long Pike’s beacon would last.
Batteries might be going dead while I sit here with my thumb up my ass. Lose that, and the whole game’s over
. He’d worry about Mason later. In fact, he wouldn’t worry about Mason at all. He’d failed, and now, as in the past, Lucas would be forced to clean up the mess. He liked to think he was being logical, but the truth was he
wanted
Pike. Wanted to be the one who twisted the knife. And make no mistake, Pike wasn’t going to die easy. Not anymore. As he saw it, all of his troubles centered on one man. The ongoing investigation that had forced him to flee the U.S. was precisely the result of this asshole’s evading Lucas’s net. The thought rankled him. Made him eager for the hunt.

He watched the beacon track on the computer in his lap and committed the team.

“Target’s on the move. He’s headed this way. By the speed of the beacon, he’s mounted. We’ll wait here until he dismounts. Once he’s stationary, we’ll roll. This car will lead, passing up his location. The trail car will follow, stopping short. On my command—I say again, on
my
command—we’ll execute the mission. Nobody, and I mean nobody, will fire until I give the command. Once that command is given, everyone with a shot needs to fire. Is that understood?”