Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (8 page)

“Which means the state has to call its own dozen witnesses to match up against the defense’s hired guns.”

“Why?” All eyes turned to Karp, who then rephrased his question. “Why does the state have to match the defense experts?”

Hall and Epstein both shrugged. “If for no other reason, juries expect it these days,” Epstein said. “They’ve all been watching
CSI
and
Forensic Files
. They think that both sides are supposed to call experts to battle it out.”

Karp nodded as if something had just occurred to him, but instead of saying anything, he turned to Moishe. “So Moishe, what do you think about this debate over expert testimony?”

Moishe waved his hand. “I’m just a baker. What do I know of these things?”

“Humor me,” Karp replied. “We have these august attorneys—two of the best in the business—who say that the prosecution and the defense ought to call as many experts as they deem necessary and then let the jury sort out who’s telling the truth.”

The little baker thought for a moment. “Well, in baking—and, I have found, in life—usually less is more. Too much sugar and the flavor is lost in the sweetness. Too much fruit and you can’t taste the pastry. If something is good, don’t mess it up by adding to it…. Maybe it is the same in the courtroom. Sometimes it compounds a lie to repeat it, even if it’s to counter the lie. It is like these people who claim that the Holocaust never occurred. They have a thousand small lies that they claim proves their point. These lies add up to the one big lie. A lie so big that even good people begin to wonder if there is at least some truth to it.”

“So you’re saying too many experts cloud the picture?” Hall said, shooting his friend and adversary Epstein a smile.

“In a way,” Moishe agreed. “The one big lie is like a giant raging
beast and throwing small rocks can’t bring it down; they only give it substance—otherwise, why throw?”

“So how do you bring down the one big lie?” Karp asked, intrigued by how the turn in conversation mirrored his discussion in the Jewish role model classes just a few nights before.

Moishe held up his arm and pulled down on the sleeve, revealing the number tattooed there by his former captors. “The truth.”

Karp shook his head and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “From the mouths of bakers…”

“Hear, hear,” Bill Florence cheered, pulling a silver flask from the interior pocket of his suit coat. “Moishe, if you don’t mind, we sometimes enjoy a little spice with our coffees.”

“Ah, men after my own heart,” Moishe replied, holding out his cup. “I’ve found that it helps me with my kneading.”

L
YING ON A HILLSIDE ALMOST THREE MILES AWAY FROM
where his girlfriend was climbing into a motorcycle sidecar, Ned Blanchett peered down the scope of his .50 caliber Barrett M107 at the trucks arriving at the edge of the village below. Otherwise, he moved as little as possible, relying on his Ghillie camouflage suit to blend into the gray-green rocks and brown grasses surrounding him.

What the hell am I doing here?
he wondered, resting his cheek against the LRSR, or long-range sniper rifle. A few minutes earlier, as he waited for the signal from Ivgeny Karchovski, he’d allowed his thoughts to wander back to the days only a few years distant when he was just a simple ranch hand in New Mexico. If he hadn’t decided to go dancing at the Sagebrush Inn south of Taos that night, he might never have met Lucy Karp and her mother, Marlene Ciampi. But he had, and life had never been as simple, or safe, again.

Not that he had any regrets about the path his fate had taken. A shy young man more comfortable with horses than women, he’d figured he might never meet a woman to settle down with. But he’d fallen in love with Lucy and to his surprise, she with him. The flip side of that was he found himself thrust into the violent and bizarre
world of the Karp-Ciampi clan, battling murderers, terrorists, and other psychos.

At the same time, he’d come to accept that without her, he would have lived out his life on the range and never gotten involved in a world that seemed so out of kilter with the natural beauty of his surroundings. After the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, he’d been outraged but also felt impotent to do anything about it. Now here he was, a member of a secret agency headed by “former” FBI special agent S. P. “Espey” Jaxon, preparing to assassinate a terrorist.

When Jaxon first approached him about signing on, the agent explained that he needed team members who were “below the radar.” No one from other government agencies, except for a few trusted men he’d brought in with him from the FBI. He said it was because he wanted people who didn’t have federal personnel files on them. But there was also the implicit message that the Sons of Man, who’d been his particular target, had their tentacles in law enforcement agencies from the Department of Homeland Security to the FBI to the CIA.

According to the official story, Jaxon and his men left the bureau to work for a private security firm and hefty salary increases. Blanchett assumed that given such a short list of people who could be trusted, the existence of their small force was known to very few people, though Jaxon seemed to be able to summon extensive resources.

Those resources had apparently determined that the Sons of Man were up to more mischief and that once again Nadya Malovo was central to the action. Apparently, no one had been able to determine exactly what the threat would be, so it was decided that killing Malovo might at least throw their plans into disarray. It wasn’t quite the same as cutting the head off the snake to kill the body—that would have to wait until Jaxon was ready to go after the SOM leadership—more like pulling its fangs.

By ripping open her heart with a .50 caliber bullet,
he thought. The now familiar twinge of guilt rippled across Blanchett’s mind as he contemplated shooting a woman, even one as evil as Nadya Malovo, from nearly a mile away. As he was raised in the Old West,
steeped in its myths of fair play and face-to-face confrontations, this smacked to him of an ambush—something normally attributed to “the bad guys.”

Shortly after joining Jaxon’s “company,” Blanchett had been spirited off to a training facility on the West Coast where he and others were put through a course, which they were told was similar to what it took to qualify for the Navy SEALs. Only this was more secret. He and his comrades were prohibited from talking freely. They were allowed to discuss harmless, general topics—like baseball and women—but they weren’t supposed to share information about which agencies they belonged to, who they worked with, or anything that might identify them or their missions.

Out of nearly two dozen men and women who started the training, only he and a half dozen others completed it. Along the way, a tough but skinny young cowboy had been transformed into a tough, muscular man with broad shoulders, narrow hips, and a steady aim that could put a bullet into a five-inch circle from a half mile away.

After completing the course, he’d been whisked off to sniper school at yet another undisclosed location in the South. Jaxon had taken note of Blanchett’s native ability with guns—both the .45 caliber Peacemaker he used for quick-draw and pistol shooting contests, and the Winchester rifle he carried on the range. Years of shooting both from horseback had trained his eyes and reflexes to snap off an accurate shot at the precise right moment even on the move.

Of course, all that shooting had been in fun or boredom, or to deal with the occasional predator, like mountain lions and coyotes. Then he’d met Lucy and he’d been called upon to shoot a man for the first time in her defense, and others later as he became embroiled in the perpetual violence surrounding her family. But those killings had come in the heat of battle when faced by other armed men, and it was kill or be killed.

Not lying here like a snake in the grass,
he thought. He wiped his eyes and forced himself to recall the conversation he’d had with the Special Forces sergeant who’d been his instructor at sniper school when he’d brought up his concerns. The sergeant, a tall black man who never seemed to blink, had looked thoughtful, as if it was the first time he’d run into this issue.

“How do most people die in a war?”
he asked at last.

Blanchett had shrugged.
“Bullets…bombs.”

“Yeah, bullets, bombs, Army cooking and syphilis,”
the sergeant said,
“but what I meant was, do they die up close and personal—hand to hand, gunfight at the OK Corral? Or do they die because some motherfucker whose face they’ve never seen sent some shit their way that takes their poor, unfortunate asses out of here?”

“Uh…if you mean from a distance, I guess that would be right,”
Blanchett said.

“Damn straight. Not since the days of rocks and, I guess, swords and clubs have we done most of our killing eye to eye. In fact, most military innovation has been a trend to kill from greater and greater distances because one, it’s safer, and two, it has a hell of a demoralizing effect on the enemy.”

Blanchett’s lips twisted.
“I get your drift. But it still don’t feel right.”

Again the sergeant was silent for a moment before he spoke.
“Nothing wrong with that feeling. The Bible says ‘Thou shalt not kill’ and that ain’t something you should ever feel good about ignoring. But sometimes killing evil motherfuckers is necessary, especially if by letting them live, you endanger innocent people you could have saved…or the men and women you serve with and who are counting on you to protect them from the enemy.”

The sergeant clapped him on the shoulder and held on.
“Tell you what, cowboy, I’ve done three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and there was several times when the joker shooting at me was close enough and good enough that they nearly made it count. And tell you what: I much preferred killing their buddies from a safe distance with a .50 cal M107. I don’t like it, but I think to myself, ‘What if I don’t take the shot and a week later he takes over a jet and flies it into a civilian office building, or I hesitate to blow his brains all over the yard and before I can come to my senses, the son of a bitch murders an innocent hostage?’ That’s what I think about when I contemplate pulling that trigger.”

Half a world away from the woods where that conversation took place, Blanchett looked back down the scope as the trucks pulled up in front of the house Ivgeny’s men had pointed out as the likely
meeting place. The men were hard-faced Dagestani who apparently worked for the Karchovski family business. Ivgeny had introduced them as men he’d served with in Afghanistan—including two Muslims—and their sons.

Jaxon had described the Karchovski business as smuggling black-market goods into Russia and the surrounding area—from vehicles to liquor to designer clothing—and then turning around and smuggling immigrants into the United States. In answer to Blanchett’s unasked question, the agent shrugged and said,
“I know…feds and Russian mob bosses make strange bedfellows, but sometimes the enemy of my enemy truly is a great friend.”

Yeah, aren’t we an odd band of desperados,
Blanchett thought.
A former commie army officer turned gangster, a ranch hand from New Mexico, smugglers, FBI agents…and a female linguist from New York City.

Blanchett furrowed his brow as he thought about Lucy and the danger she was in. When she told him that she, too, was joining Jaxon’s squad, he’d been vehemently opposed. But she’d responded with the fiery spirit that had first attracted him to the gangly young woman from back east.

“Don’t tell me what to do, Ned Blanchett,”
she’d responded, her hands on her hips, which he would have found endearing except that she was spitting mad.

“It’s too dangerous,”
he tried to reason.

“You mean it’s too dangerous for a girl. But it’s just as dangerous for you, or more so, because I’m sure Uncle Espey will try to keep me out of the action when he can. I don’t know why you think you’re any better at this sort of thing than I am.”

“It’s just something I feel like I’ve got to do for my country.”

“Our country,”
she’d corrected him.
“I’m just as patriotic as you are. Now get over yourself and accept that I’m in just as deep as you are.”

That had pretty much been the end of the discussion. He’d had to give in, if for no other reason than she stopped listening to his reasons.

“Target should be exiting the vehicle any moment,” said a voice next to him. “Distance 1623 Mike. No breeze.”

Oh yeah, I forgot,
Blanchett thought as he made a minor adjustment on the scope.
We also got an Indian and a Vietnamese gangster on our side.
His spotter lying next to him with binoculars trained on the village was John Jojola, the former chief of police for the Taos Indian Pueblo and a former guerrilla fighter with the army during the Vietnam War. He, too, had been caught up in the Karp-Ciampi family tornado, which was fine with Blanchett because even in his fifties, Jojola was a good man to have in a scrap, and as a spotter for the sniper team.

When Jaxon first went over the mission while they were on a jet winging across the Mediterranean, Blanchett had asked why they weren’t using a Predator unmanned drone armed with a missile to take out Malovo.

“Good question,”
Jaxon answered.
“But there are several reasons. One, we want to be sure we get her, not just blow up a building; we may never get this sort of intelligence and catch her off guard again. Two, the State Department doesn’t want to get into it with the Russians about taking military action in airspace they consider theirs, even if the locals don’t. And three, we don’t know who all is going to be present at this meeting, and again, the State Department is concerned that a missile strike might cause collateral damage we don’t intend.”

“In other words, somebody we might want on our side someday could die,”
Jojola scoffed.
“One day they’re terrorists, the next day they’re freedom fighters.”

“Exactly,”
Jaxon agreed.
“It’s unfortunate that politics get in the way of simply doing what’s right or what’s safer. The State Department wants deniability, and it boils down to making sure Malovo is the target, which Ivgeny and Lucy will confirm, and that we do our best to limit other casualties.”

After entering Dagestan, they’d been escorted by men working for Karchovski and spent several days reconnoitering the countryside and working out the details of their plan.

“How’s security?” Blanchett asked. He could sense Jojola looking carefully around. An hour earlier, with the light fading, Karchovski’s men had crept into position, and at a signal, they cut the throats of the sentinels stationed closest to where Blanchett and Jojola would
set up. Karchovski’s men immediately assumed the lookouts’ positions so that no one in the village would raise the alarm. Blanchett and Jojola would be counting on the men to cover their escape as well.

“Good,” Jojola replied in a low voice. He picked up a camera and trained the lens on the village below. “Two men have exited the house to greet our friend. Got a couple good face shots. But she’s still in the truck, like she’s waiting for something…”

Blanchett tensed, wondering if they’d been discovered. Would the men below start charging up the hill while Malovo escaped? He decided that if the trucks started to move, he’d chance a blind shot at the passenger side of the second vehicle, which Karchovski had signaled was the one with his former lover aboard. It wasn’t a great option. The M170 fired a round that would go through a reinforced concrete wall, but he’d still be shooting at a target he couldn’t see.

“There we go,” Jojola whispered, “she was waiting on the bodyguards…. She’s all yours.”

Blanchett fixed the crosshairs on the passenger side of the second truck. He had hoped for a clear shot at his target’s chest, which was a more sure thing than her head. A head was smaller, and sometimes moved out of sync with the body. But Malovo’s guards had moved so close to the truck that he knew his only clear view would be her head.

The door opened and he saw blond hair begin to emerge. He began to slowly let his breath out and ever so gently increased the pressure on the M170 trigger as he waited for his target to stand upright. But instead, Malovo surprised him by stooping as she got out of the car so that he couldn’t see her through her human shield. The group then hurried for the open door of the building, followed by the men who’d come out to greet her.