The Forgotten Soldier: A Pike Logan Thriller (19 page)

36

H
aider smiled and said, “Yes, I got the email. Very good. So you had no troubles? You’ll be coming home tonight?”

Nassir said, “No, no troubles at all. He was right where you said he’d be. He has the money, the identification, and the phone. He’ll be taking a ferry tomorrow.”

Haider repeated, “So you’ll leave tonight?”

He heard a pause, then, “Uhhh, no. I’d like to stay the night and leave first thing tomorrow. If that’s okay.”

“Why?”

“I have a woman. Someone from Crete. She gave me her number, and she wants to meet at a hotel. I’m going there now.”

“A hotel? And she’s from Crete?”

Understanding the question, Nassir said, “Yes. She lives with her parents. All she asked was that I pay for the room.”

Haider looked at Khalid, his friend leaning forward with a scowl, wondering where the conversation was going. He said, “No. Nassir, there have been things that have happened. I want you home.”

“I’m already there. The hotel was in the same town I met the Syrian. It’s a town full of foreigners. She wants to get away from Heraklion.”

Haider put some steel in his voice. A fake confidence easy to do over the phone. “Nassir, you do this, you make your own way home. I’m telling the yacht to leave tonight.”

Haider heard the whining begin, Nassir always being the obsequious one. “You get what you want no matter what you do. I never can. This is the one chance to act like I have a name. She thinks I’m royalty from Qatar. She thinks I’m like you.”

Haider heard a car door slam and said, “Where are you right now?”

“I’m at the hotel. Going to the room. I’ll let you talk to her, if that’ll make you feel better.”

Haider looked at Khalid and saw anger. He said, “Don’t do this. You don’t understand what’s going on. There’s someone looking for us. Looking for you. Because of Afghanistan. A killer.”

Haider heard a shuffling, the phone going from one ear to the next, then, “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t want to say on the phone. Not here. Just get back. Now.”

Haider heard a noise and said, “What are you doing?”

“Knocking on the door. I’ll pass the phone to her. She’s something you’d like to bed. I promise.”

Haider started to protest, then heard Nassir say, “Who are you?”

Khalid was stomping about the room, demanding answers. Haider held up a finger. Waiting on Nassir to say something. He didn’t.

Through the connection, the voice as strong as if he’d been the one holding the handset, Haider heard, “Hang up the fucking phone.”

Then nothing.

Haider dropped his arm, incredulous, the cell phone hanging uselessly by his side.

Khalid said, “What? What’s going on?”

“It’s him. It’s the killer.”

—

Guy heard the knock and looked through the peephole, seeing his target and feeling a flush of vengeance. He stared further and saw he was on his cell phone. Talking to someone.

He backed up, thinking. He couldn’t open the door with the jerk
talking on the phone. It was a trace. A last vestige of the target’s life. He was expecting a woman to open the door, and when it was Guy, he’d inevitably say something into the phone. Something that couldn’t be hidden when he came up missing.

He heard another knock, this one more insistent, and turned a small circle, cursing.

Let him go. Follow the man in the hotel. Do what’s right.

He felt the pull. Felt the draw from his past, where the rule of law dictated his life. He leaned into the eyehole and saw the face from his brother’s armband. The face of the man who had caused the death of an entire Special Forces team.

He leaned against the wall, his hands pressing his temples.

Do it. Don’t do it. Do it. Don’t do it.

The blackness twitched, uncoiling in his soul. He looked through the peephole again, and saw the target begin to move away.

He’s going to leave. This is it.

Unbidden, his hand went to the knob. Like a thing from another body, he saw his arm open the door. Saw the look of shock on the man’s face.

He said, “Hang up the fucking phone.”

37

K
halid said, “What do you mean? The killer? He’s there, right now?”

Haider nodded, mute.

“Are you saying he’s killing Nassir as we speak?”

“Yes . . . No . . . I don’t know. Nassir said he was meeting a female, then I heard another man tell him to hang up the phone. Then it disconnected.”

Khalid said, “Look into your heart. Was it the killer?”

Haider nodded hesitantly, then with more power. “Yes. It was him. He’s tracking us.” He looked at Khalid and said, “How did he know? How did he find Nassir?”

Khalid said, “He works for the United States. This isn’t a lone gunman. We need to capture him. Interrogate him. Find out what he knows.”

On the verge of panic, thinking of his father, Haider said, “How? We don’t know anything about him. He seems to know everything about us.”

Haider put his hands to his head and continued. “He’s going to find out about the Syrian. He’s going to learn our plans.”

Khalid turned cold. Clinical. “No, he won’t. He will learn about the existence of the Syrian. In fact, he most likely already has, but you didn’t tell Nassir what you told me after your meetings with the
American secretary of state. Nassir doesn’t know anything of value, other than the Syrian exists. And we can use that against the American.”

“How?”

“When he learns of the Syrian, the man will want to hunt him. To kill him. It’s impossible for him not to. We use his own desire against him.”

Haider recoiled at the very notion, saying, “Khalid, I can’t do that. If anything happens to the Syrian, my father will disown me. I should call him. Get his advice. Let him know what has transpired.”

He brought the phone back up and Khalid placed a hand on his arm, stopping him.

“Don’t call your father. He will tell you to send the Syrian as planned, and then disown you anyway.” Khalid chuckled and said, “Don’t worry. It’s not too bad. I’ve been dead to my father from birth.”

Haider ignored the comment. “I have to call him. This is too big of a problem. The man has killed two of us, and now might destroy my father’s plans. If it festers, my father might do more than just disown me.”

Khalid said, “Give it a day. Contact Nikos and have him send some men to Crete. I’ll go with them. The American has Nassir’s phone, and I’m sure Nassir has given him whatever passwords went along with it. Send Nassir an email detailing a new meeting for the Syrian. Someplace where he won’t dare attack. Then call the Syrian and tell him to go there. The man will find him, and the Syrian will lead him straight to us, at a location we control.”

Haider waivered and Khalid said, “Remember Ahmed. Remember Nassir. Your father doesn’t care about them, but you do. We can avenge them.”

Khalid placed his hands on Haider’s shoulders, facing him square. Haider saw the crazy leaking out of his eyes. A small tear when they
were in Qatar, it had grown larger since Afghanistan, like a split in a bucket. Khalid said, “You are my friend, but if you do not do this, you won’t have to worry about your father. I’ll kill you myself.”

—

Guy returned from the small bathroom, carrying a rag damp with water. He walked to the man in the chair, taking his time. Letting the dread build.

Eyes rolling left and right, unable to turn his head, the man was sweating profusely. Using a roll of duct tape, Guy had strapped him to a chair like a mummy, both legs and arms cinched tight. He’d taken two broomsticks and run them up the back of the chair, strapping one behind each ear, then down the chair. His target was completely immobile, his shirt hitched high and his pants pulled down to his knees.

Directly to the front of the chair was a small end table. On top of it were all of the possessions the man had on him. Wallet, smartphone, change, and a laser-cut key. Next to the key was a pair of pliers.

Guy moved the table back a few feet, then squatted in front of the man and pulled out the rag he’d stuffed in the man’s mouth. He said, “What is your name?” The man said nothing. Guy held up the rag and said, “Open your mouth back up.” The man pursed his lips closed. Almost conversationally, Guy said, “You know the most sensitive parts of the human body? Your fingertips and your penis.”

He picked up the pliers and said, “Oh, and your tongue, but I can’t use that, because I need you to be able to speak. Now, I’m going to start with your fingers, the first just to get you to open your mouth. Then, once the rag is back in to muffle the screams, I’m going to apply some pressure so that you know what’s going to happen. Then I’ll start my questions. Some of them I already know the answer to. Some I don’t. It’ll be up to you to figure out which ones to lie to me about, but if you make a mistake, the penalty will be enormous.”

The man began to cry. Inwardly, Guy felt the relief slip out, like a
balloon losing air. This man was not nearly as hard as the one in Key West. After that episode, Guy had planned on each of his targets being die-hard fanatics. This man clearly was not.

Showing nothing but malice, Guy said, “So you know, I have more than ten questions, so eventually, if you don’t answer correctly, we’re going to reach little peter there. After that, I’ll have to get creative.”

The man closed his eyes and mumbled something. Guy thumped his forehead and said, “What was that?”

“Nassir. My name is Nassir.”

Good
.

“Now, that wasn’t too hard, was it?”

Nassir mumbled, “No.”

“Okay then, second question: When was the last time you were in Afghanistan?”

Nassir looked confused at the track of the question, and Guy raised the pliers, gently placing the tip of Nassir’s index finger between the jaws. Guy said, “I’m not even going to pretend I don’t know the answer to that question.”

Nassir said, “Two months ago. It was the only time. I’ve never been there before that. I swear.”

A strange mishmash of emotions flooded into Guy. Victory competing with sadness competing with anger. He felt the urge to take Nassir’s murdering life right then, the snake coiling for vengeance, but the meeting that had occurred earlier pulled at the back of his brain. A need to learn if this cell intended to kill again. A responsibility to the duty he’d sworn to uphold.

And a yearning for absolution for what he was about to do.

He changed tack to throw off his subject, turning to the table and pointing at the key with his free hand. “Tell me what this goes to.”

Whipped by the change in direction, Nassir stumbled for an answer, and Guy closed the pliers, shoving in the rag as soon as Nassir’s mouth flew open.

A tortured grunt came through the rag, and Nassir released his bladder. Guy leapt up, yanking the rag from his mouth. Without any humor, he said, “That’s not going to stop anything from happening.”

Between sucking in great gouts of air, Nassir choked out, “It’s for a safe-deposit box. A bank box.”

The room reeking of urine, sweat, and the uniquely pungent smell of animal terror, Nassir stared at the pliers on his finger, waiting on the bite. Guy said, “Safe-deposit box? At the Alpha Bank here?”

Nassir tried to nod, the forehead moving a millimeter in its tape cocoon. “Yes, yes, the Alpha Bank.”

Before Guy could ask another question, Nassir’s eyes flew open and he shouted, “No, no. Not here. Not the one here. The Alpha bank in Athens. Please, please. I didn’t mean to lie.”

Guy realized the man had broken. Nassir was now correcting himself without any pressure being applied. He was done.

Guy set the key down and said, “Good, Nassir. Very good. I believe you.”

Nassir sagged in relief, the tape alone holding him upright. Guy tapped his crushed finger, drawing a yelp of pain.

Guy said, “Don’t take my kindness for granted. We aren’t done.”

Eyes wide, tears running down his face, Nassir waited. Guy said, “Tell me about this man you met today.”