Vengeance: A Derek Stillwater Novel (Derek Stillwater Thrillers Book 8) (26 page)

Derek explained the satellite imagery.

“And you can communicate directly with Johnston right now?”

“Yes.”

“I wish to speak to him.”

With a sigh, Derek handed over his phone. He declined to share the information that his team, including Lynn Sholes, was listening in.

“Jim?”

Derek could still hear through his earbud.

“Abdul,” Johnston said. “Is Derek there?”

“Yes. Why did you not tell me you thought Nazif was nearby?”

“We were still analyzing the satellite data.”

“The U.S. has satellites looking at the Ministry of Defense?”

“Of course, but these are commercial satellites.”

“Can you send me the data you’re looking at?”

“On its way.”

El-Sisi looked at Derek. “What do you want to do, Doctor?”

“I’ve got a small team from the embassy coming shortly. With a small group of your people, I think we need to search that area.”

El-Sisi stared at him. “What are we searching for?”

Derek shrugged.

“Very well.” He handed Derek back his phone. Turning to the driver, he spoke in rapid Arabic. Then to Derek the general said, “A Rapid Deployment Force is on its way.”

Lynn Sholes looked at Nathan
Brigham as he put his phone away. “What’s he want?”

“He’d rather I didn’t tell you, ma’am.”

She glared at him. “I’m clear on that. But you rather obviously agreed to speak to him while I was in your presence and I am your commanding officer and as far as I know you’d like to continue in government service.”

“Yes ma’am. But I understand Stillwater’s concerns. He specifically doesn’t want O’Bannon in on this.”

“So we won’t tell him.”

Brigham nodded, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “General el-Sisi has met him at the Ministry of Defense complex. Stillwater and his team … ” He paused for a moment, as if reflecting on something of interest and concern to him. “ … have reason to believe Nazif was there.”

“On the grounds?”

Brigham nodded.

“And he wants?”

“Backup. Me and a team.”

With a frown she said, “Stillwater knows that O’Bannon might not have been the one who set him up. El-Sisi gave us the Ali Urabi contact.”

“I suspect Stillwater has a bias against the
CIA
, ma’am. I really need to be going.” He paused. “With your permission.”

“
We
really need to be going.”

“Ma’am?”

“You heard me. Get your team together. Let’s go.” Turning to her second-in-command, she said, “You heard that.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Keep O’Bannon out of the loop. Coordinate.”

“Ma’am,” he said. “Um, might I make a point.” Sholes’s second-in-command, Jake Abelson, was a former Marine and kept the jarhead high-and-tight so everyone would know he was a former Marine, not that he’d let anybody forget it. Once a Marine, always a Marine. But Abelson was also politically savvy, which is one of many things Sholes liked about him.

“Of course.”

“The last tip somebody followed regarding Nazif resulted in a truck bomb going off.”

“Noted.”

“Uh, I was thinking you might want to take somebody with you who’s an experienced demolitions expert.”

“Who do we have here at the Embassy with those credentials?”

Brigham said, “Slater.”

“The Marine?”

He nodded.

“Get her.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Stopping in her office long enough to grab a flak jacket, her 9mm
SIG
Sauer and an MP5, Sholes met Brigham and six other people, including the Marine, Mary Slater. The woman looked like a bulldog, squat, round face, dark skin. She carried a backpack.

“Ready?” Sholes asked.

“Ma’am,” Brigham said. “One clarification.”

“Go ahead.”

“Who’s in charge?”

She grinned. “In the field, you are. As of right now.”

He grinned back at her. “Let’s move out then. Stillwater’s waiting.”

Hussein Nazif and
Hafaz slipped out of their hiding spot in the International Stadium. They had both been there, observing, while their sniper, Bassam, had tried to kill Stillwater. Hafaz scowled. He did not like this. Hussein Nazif had been audacious and ambitious, but as far as he was concerned the Nazif Brigade had made their statement and gotten Abdul Nazif released. It was time to slip back into the shadows and return to the jihad
in Syria.

“This is madness. We could have taken out all the Americans and the Egyptians. Instead you allowed them to take Bassam. Why?”

“For what he will tell them.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“That the Secretary is in a house near the Hotel Concorde.”

“There is nothing there.”

Nazif smirked. “That is true.”

Hafaz turned to him. “It’s not worth it. And I don’t think Bassam killed Stillwater.”

“He went down.”

“No blood.”

“Somebody got hit. They headed for a hospital.”

Hafaz shook his head. “In all good—”

Nazif’s phone rang. Punching it on, Hafaz saw Nazif’s hand tightened on the phone.

“What are they doing?” Nazif demanded.

Hafaz waited.

When Nazif shut down the phone, he said, “What was that?”

“One of my sources. You were right. Stillwater is alive. And he’s at the Ministry of Defense.”

“Then he’s as good as dead. Leave him alone.”

Nazif shook his head. “Can your friend get us in?”

“What? Go back there? Are you insane? If they know about the Ministry of Defense, the place will—”

Nazif wrapped his fist around Hafaz’s throat, a gun pressed to his temple. “We go. Now.”

Derek and Noa
sat in the ambulance outside the search area while General el-Sisi’s people organized. Brigham had called him to say he was on his way and he was bringing Sholes and a Marine demolitions expert. “After the mosque bombing, I don’t recommend you open any doors and search anything until we get a chance to inspect it.”

“Sure,” Derek had.

“It’s good advice,” Noa said.

“It is.”

Looking around, Derek saw a massive open facility. Literally hundreds of military vehicles were parked in this area. The overall Ministry of Defense complex was surrounded by concrete walls and rolls of barbed wire. To get into the complex you needed to pass through at least two checkpoints where armed guards checked credentials and searched some vehicles.

“I’m just wondering how Nazif would have gotten in here,” Derek said.

“He’s got supporters everywhere. Even in the military and the Ministry of Defense.”

“Like the people at the gate, maybe.”

Two armored vehicles pulled up and Lynn Sholes, Nathan Brigham and four other people climbed out. Sholes stalked over to them and glared at Derek.

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t hang up on me.”

“Sure,” he said.

“So your network seems to be half-a-step ahead of the
NSA
, the
CIA
and the
NRO
. What’s going on?”

“We think Nazif stopped here before heading over to the International Stadium. Or some vehicle did. Can’t verify that Nazif was in them.”

“But you’re sure he was here.”

Derek stretched his back, winced. “Let’s find out.”

General el-Sisi was directing the
operation from his armored personnel carrier. He had a map of the facility and was studying the satellite footage. Sholes was conferring with him. Nathan Brigham and the Marine demolition expert, Mary Slater, wandered over to where Derek and Noa waited.

Brigham introduced Slater, who shook their hands. She said with an accent that sounded like New Orleans, “If this is anything like the truck bomb at Heliopolis this afternoon, I’m not sure I’m equipped for it. That sucker left a crater. I’m more IEDs and land mines.”

“We could leave the whole thing to the Egyptians,” Derek said mildly.

Slater shrugged. “I’ll do what needs to be done, I’m just providing what little insight I have.”

“I think your insight is good, Sergeant. Ah, it looks like everyone might be getting organized.”

Sholes walked over to them. “We’ve got a grid worked out. If you’re good with it, the five of us will make a team.”

Derek shrugged. “Clock’s ticking. Nazif’s supposed to call me pretty soon.”

“We’ll do our thing, then.” Presenting a map on an iPad, Sholes pointed where they were and what area they were responsible for.”

They headed in that direction, parking their vehicles a good fifty yards away from the closest truck. Sholes joined them. “At best estimate, we’ve got about twenty-five trucks
to inspect.”

Derek cocked his head at Slater. “Your recommendation?”

“Visual inspection only. Do not open a door. Keep an eye out for any trip wires, be very careful where you put your feet. It’s pavement, so I don’t think there will be a problem with pressure plates.”

Derek glanced at his watch. It was 4:40. Although he figured the 4:45 Nazif had mentioned was merely a way to keep Derek talking and staying in one place while the sniper got a bead on him, he wondered if he would receive a phone call in five minutes.

“Okay,” Brigham said. “We’ve got five rows of five trucks. Each of us gets a row. Meet back here when you’re done. If you find anything, call us up.”

Derek took the far row, Noa at his back with the next row. Sholes was in the middle with Brigham and Slater taking the other two outside rows.

Crawling under the first truck to look for any signs of bombs or booby-traps, lying on the oil-stained pavement that was only a few degrees cooler than the baking cement under the sun, Derek wondered what the hell they were really looking for. He slid around as best he could, seeing nothing obvious, then circled the truck. With his shoulder, his back, his leg, and every other bone and muscle in his body throbbing, the crawling and crouching and slithering was a lesson in pain management. He wanted to jump up and look in the cab, but Slater had warned them about moving or jostling the trucks in any way.

Rolling out from beneath the truck, he stood face to face with Noa. He reached out and wiped away a smear of grease from her cheek with his thumb. “I wonder—”

Irina: We might have something. Hold on!

Boris Pasternak was
a squat, burly Russian with a thick beard. He sat in a car parked near the Nile, controlling his small drone off an iPad.

For seven years, Pasternak had been stationed at the Russian Embassy in Cairo, his official title Diplomatic Resident. Which was nebulous and could be many things. He was, in fact, a member of the
FSB
and he provided support to the Russian
FSB
Chief of Station. If he had anything to say about it, he would remain in Cairo for the rest of his career and retire here.

Years ago, back when he started with the
FSB
, he had been partnered with a young and patriotic Russian named Konstantin Nikitonov and they had become close friends. While Konstantin had moved increasingly into counterterrorism activities, Boris had followed his interests into the Middle East.

He liked the Egyptians. He liked the food. He loved the weather.

He really,
really
loved the weather and hoped to never spend another winter anywhere in Russia ever again.

Boris only returned to Russia to visit his mother and occasionally report in to the powers-that-be in Lubyanka.

A few years ago he had developed an interest, more as a hobby, in small drones. He’d made a lot of videos of the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, even selling a couple of them to tourism agencies. It turned out, over the last year during the Arab Spring, that the drones had been exceptionally useful in tracking the ebb and flow of the protesters and the government response. His
FSB
boss had given him a new job—monitor Cairo from the sky.

He had the best job in the world.

Viewing the activities of Derek Stillwater and the Israelis at the International Stadium, he had viewed the subsequent U.S. and Egyptian assault on the sniper. Then he had followed the ambulance to the hospital and per Konstantin’s request, headed over to the Ministry of Defense. For all extents and purposes, he could get close to the Ministry of Defense area, but not fly over it.

Finding nothing of particular interest there, he had returned to the International Stadium, thinking about the last time he had caught a soccer game and how much he had enjoyed it and maybe he should look up the schedule for the next game and invite his girlfriend, a middle-aged Italian woman who ran a restaurant near the river, to a game.

And flying the drone around the stadium, he had spotted two men carrying assault rifles walking down the steps and disappearing into one of the tunnels that led beneath the stands.

He steered the drone lower, watching the live feed. The camera had very impressive resolution, and Boris was old enough to appreciate how far digital video and cameras had come in a very short period of time.

The two men were oblivious to the drone and soon disappeared into the tunnels. Boris continued to surveill the area.

A car pulled out from one of the stadium tunnels and pulled alongside where the box and the phone had been. The car stopped.

Boris dropped the drone lower, hoping to get images of the men’s faces.

The drone was quiet, but not silent. Suddenly the men both looked up.

A crystal clear image of the two men appeared on the screen and Boris tapped it to take a screenshot.

Then he saw the two men raise their
AK
-47s and fire at the drone.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he swore, quickly ascending.

And then the screen went dark.

“Bastards!” Nobody was that good. But a lucky bullet must have taken out the drone.

He got on the phone, emailing the image to Konstantin.

“What is it?” Derek asked.

“Boris has a screenshot from two men just now at the stadium. I think one of them’s Nazif.”

Noa already had her tablet out and was bringing up the image. Derek looked at it. “That’s him.”

Appearing at his shoulder, Sholes said, “What’s going on?”

“Nazif. He was at the stadium just a couple minutes ago.”

Immediately shouting into her radio, “Eagle Two, this is Eagle One. Subject was sighted at the International Stadium. Who do we have?”

She listened to something only she could hear and said, “On my way. We’re running out of staff. We’re the closest group.”

“Let’s go.” Derek rushed toward the ambulance, Noa at his heels.

Behind them, Sholes was rounding up Brigham and the rest of the team, including Slater, the demolitions expert.

General el-Sisi’s man, a Colonel Oba, was running toward them, shouting, “What is going on? What are you doing? Did you find anything?”

Derek and Noa screeched away, letting Sholes explain things.

A buzzing sound caught Derek’s attention. He realized it was the phone he had gotten at the stadium, picked off the crate in the parking lot.

“What?”

Nazif. “Where are you, Stillwater?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m told you’re at the Ministry of Defense.”

“You have spies everywhere, do you?”

“I have something for you, Stillwater.”

“Why don’t you go—”

An enormous explosion ripped through the area.