From the terminal, he heard the security siren begin to sound, loud then soft, loud then soft.
The agent’s eyes registered the riot of blood covering the linoleum, deep maroon, almost black. His eyes followed the pool at the center of the room along its edges. It was coming from the stalls in the corner of the restroom. He inched forward, toward the stalls.
“Hello?” he said. “Anyone here?”
He pressed the microphone attached to his lapel.
“Have you found Parakesh?” he asked.
“
No,
” said the other agent. “
He hasn’t responded
.”
The agent stepped gingerly into the sheen of wet blood and moved to the last stall, his eyes tracing the simple stream that coursed from beneath the stall door. At the stall, he reached out and pulled the handle back, swinging the door open. Lying in a contorted pile, he saw Parakesh. Beneath him, wedged against the toilet, he saw another body, Uruquin, another customs agent.
He pressed the mic on his lapel.
“I…” he whispered. He let the button go and tried to gather himself. He tried again. “I … I found them. Parakesh and Uruquin. They’re dead. They’ve been murdered.”
“Shall I—”
“Radio DIG Sahi at Capital Territory Police,” he said. “Tell him there’s been a double murder at Benazir Bhutto. Tell him Colonel Parakesh is among the dead. Then shut down the airport.”
RAWALPINDI
The minivan moved along the small, dark streets of Rawalpindi, dodging pedestrians as they walked in the night. Dewey glanced at his watch: 12:32
A.M.
Millar drove in silence. They crossed a bridge into the southern edge of the large city and at Jinnah Road went left. They took Jinnah for several miles, through the heart of Rawalpindi. Even at this late hour, people were gathered late into the night. After a few more miles, they went right onto Iqbal Road, then took another right onto College Road and finally a left onto a small, dark street called Gowal Mandi.
The sky was clouded over. Off the main boulevard, there was only ambient light.
“There,” said Dewey, nodding to a large, white stucco apartment building, more than a dozen stories high.
In front of the building, three black Range Rovers were parked. An armed soldier stood at the door, weapon raised. He registered the minivan as it passed.
“Why don’t they just hang a fucking sign?” asked Iverheart.
Millar drove past the apartment building without slowing down. He went six blocks south, then took a right, weaving back through the alleyway behind the row of apartment buildings.
Millar parked the car next to a row of garbage cans several hundred feet south of the apartment building.
Dewey, Iverheart, and Millar climbed out of the van. Each man was now stripped down to T-shirts. Shoulder holsters held their handguns, in front, they each carried MP7A1 submachine guns, nine-inch Gemtech suppressors screwed into the nozzles to soften the noise. Dewey flipped off the safety on his weapon, the others followed his lead. They pulled the ATN night vision goggles down, then flipped them on.
They walked quickly down the alleyway, MP7s aimed forward as they moved quietly along. Dewey led the team along the back edge of the alley, hugging the shadows, shrouded in darkness.
The men were soaking now in the intense humidity.
Dewey smelled cigarette smoke. He held up his right hand. At the rear entrance, more than a hundred feet away, was a small orange ember.
Dewey pointed at Millar.
Millar lifted his goggles to his forehead, then raised the sniper rifle to his shoulder. He turned on the thermal sight. He took a few seconds to set the target through the red dot laser optic atop the weapon. Then he pulled the trigger. The slug hit the soldier dead center on his forehead. The force of the bullet ripped most of his head off while kicking his body backward, into the air, for a brief second before he tumbled into a pile.
They ran quickly down the alley toward the back door to Karreff’s apartment building. Behind the corpse of the dead Pakistani soldier, Dewey found a handle, but the door was locked. He pulled a snap gun—a device for picking locks—from his pocket and picked the lock.
Dewey entered first. Behind the door, a set of stairs led the men down into a darkened, musty-smelling basement-level room. Dewey moved quietly into the room, his goggles on, the machine gun out in front of him.
Iverheart and Millar followed Dewey into the room. Through the door, into the basement’s hallway, then a set of stairs. Dewey cracked the door to the stairs and listened for nearly an entire minute. It was silent. Then, overhead, he heard the faint sound of chuckling. He stepped into the landing and found the light switch panel next to the door. He stepped back out into the basement hallway and closed the door slowly and silently.
“We have two men on the stairs outside Karreff’s apartment,” whispered Dewey. “What else do we know, Van?”
“You have one man on the first floor,” said Bradstreet into Dewey, Iverheart, and Millar’s earbuds. “The rest of the crew is upstairs, floor six.”
“We’ll take out the first-floor man, then take the elevator two floors above and two floors below Karreff,” whispered Dewey. “Alex, you kill the lights on my signal, then Rob and I will take out the guys on the stairs. We’ll wait for you, then move on the main floor.”
* * *
Dewey and Iverheart climbed the stairs in silence. At the first floor, Dewey cracked the door open. A lone soldier, the one who’d been positioned outside, stood in the apartment building’s foyer. Dewey nodded to Iverheart, who held the door while Dewey moved his MP7 to his shoulder and aimed. He looked through the Zeiss red dot optic on top of the weapon, setting the small dot on the soldier’s cheek. The weapon made a dull thud as it fired.
Dewey dragged the dead guard to the stairwell entrance while Iverheart pressed the elevator button.
Dewey slung the MP7 over his back and pulled the Colt .45 from his shoulder holster as they stepped into the elevator. Dewey pressed the buttons for the fourth and eighth floors, two floors above and two floors below the sixth floor where Karreff was with his mistress.
The elevator doors closed and they began to move.
“COMM check,” said Dewey, holding his earbud.
“Check,” said Iverheart.
* * *
“Okay here,” said Millar.
Millar opened the door to the basement level landing of the stairwell and stepped inside. He could hear voices coming from above. He moved to the light switch panel, then pulled his goggles down over his eyes.
* * *
At the fourth floor, Iverheart stepped off the elevator. Next to the elevator was a light switch, which he flipped off, darkening the hallway.
He pulled his ATN night vision goggles down over his eyes and moved to the stairwell door, waiting for Dewey. He extended the butt of the MP7, locked it in place, then moved the fire selector to full auto.
“I’m in position,” said Iverheart into his earbud.
* * *
“Okay,” said Dewey as the elevator doors opened on the eighth floor. “Hold on.”
Dewey stepped off the elevator. He flipped off the light switch, pulled down his goggles, then moved to the stairwell door. He extended the butt of his weapon, then moved the fire selector to full auto.
“On one, we enter the stairs,” whispered Dewey. “Nice and calm, Once we’re inside, wait for me to give the go. Alex, don’t kill the lights until I give you the signal.”
“Got it,” said Millar.
“Three, two,” whispered Dewey, “one.”
* * *
Gently, Iverheart pulled the door to the stairs open, then stepped into the stair shaft at the fourth-floor landing.
The voices of Karreff’s guards were louder now; they jabbered on distracted, oblivious.
With his back against the wall, submachine gun in his left hand and aimed out in front of him, Iverheart moved silently up the stairs.
* * *
Dewey entered the stairwell at the eighth floor. He pressed his back against the wall, then moved down the stairs, feeling along the wall with his fingertips, in his right he held the MP7, suppressor jutting forward, trained down the empty stairwell in front of him.
He could hear the voices of the two soldiers echoing up the stair shaft. Their voices helped to cloak whatever noise was coming from his movement down the stairs.
At the seventh-floor landing, between iron bars on the stairwell bannister, Dewey eyed the red of one of the soldier’s berets.
“Rob,” Dewey whispered.
“In position,” whispered Iverheart.
“Alex.”
“Ready.”
“On one, kill the lights,” said Dewey.
* * *
Iverheart felt perspiration dripping from his hair and face. His heart was racing now as he waited for Dewey to start the count. He aimed the MP7 out in front of him. He placed his right foot on the first stair, readying for the sprint up to the guards.
“Three,” whispered Dewey into the earbud. “Two, one.”
The stairwell went black. Iverheart sprinted up the stairs, leaping three steps at a time, guided by his night vision goggles. His silenced MP7 was trained in front of him as he climbed.
He heard a panicked voice, then the faint thuds of weapon fire from above.
As he rounded the last corner before the sixth-floor landing he came upon one of the guards, running blindly down the stairs.
* * *
As the stairwell went dark, Dewey stepped to the railing, weapon forward, his finger on the steel trigger.
Dewey examined—through night vision goggles—the landing one floor below.
The soldier with the beret was looking about frantically, his world having gone abruptly black.
Dewey aimed his weapon at him and fired. The soldier was knocked back onto the landing, where he tumbled to the ground. The other guard panicked, running down the stairs toward Iverheart.
* * *
As Iverheart made his way up the stairs, one of the soldiers came into view, clinging to the railing and moving down. Iverheart fired his silenced submachine gun, striking the soldier in the chest. The man fell, then rolled down stair after stair until his body stopped at Iverheart’s feet.
* * *
Dewey moved down the stairwell toward the landing. He came upon the soldier with the beret, contorted against the wall. He didn’t need to check and see if the man was dead; the right side of his face was missing.
“Clear,” said Dewey.
“Clear,” said Iverheart.
* * *
Millar’s footsteps came faintly up the stair shaft. He joined Dewey and Iverheart at the sixth-floor landing, stepping by the corpses of the soldiers.
Dewey flipped a small light of his MP7 on, then removed his ATN goggles, which Iverheart and Millar did as well. In the dim light, he looked at the two young soldiers. He showed no emotion, but he felt it. For a brief moment, Dewey had a surge of feeling he’d long ago forgotten; the brotherhood of being a soldier.
“Nice job with the lights,” whispered Dewey, trying to keep the mood light.
“Thanks. It’s one of my specialties.”
Dewey smiled at Millar. He was focused, but calm. He made it look easy, as if he’d been born into black-on-black operations. Dewey looked over at Iverheart. His eyes were as black as coal. Yet, they had something about them, a slightly mischievous aspect; Iverheart, it almost seemed, was having fun.
A noise came over a radio on the belt of the dead guard, words in Urdu.
“Their captain’s checking in,” whispered Millar. “We need to move.”
“How many are down?” asked Bradstreet.
“Four,” said Dewey, “including one in the back alley.”
“You got three more dudes,” said the Bradstreet over the COMM. “Maybe four.”
Dewey moved to the door, the suppressor on the end of the MP7 aimed at the ceiling. Iverheart and Millar crouched to their knees on each side of the door, weapons ready.
The radio squawked again, the voice more insistent this time.
“They’re looking for a response from the guy on the first floor,” whispered Millar.
Millar swung his MP7 around. He extended the stock of the submachine gun, locked it into place, then moved the fire selector to full auto.
“You’re entering at six o’clock,” said Margaret on the COMM. “Karreff’s apartment is at midnight.”
“Quickly and quietly,” whispered Dewey. “We don’t want the general to hear us.”
Dewey nodded at Iverheart. Slowly, Iverheart pulled the door ajar. Dewey pressed the silencer’s tip against the small crack that soon appeared as Iverheart eased the door open. Light flashed into the stairwell.
Dewey saw the green of a uniform just inside the door. He spied brown eyes, short-cropped black hair, the silver black steel of an UZI SMG. Dewey moved the suppressor’s tip up a few inches. He pulsed the trigger of the MP7 just once. The soldier’s body catapulted violently, hit the wall, then crumpled to the floor.
Iverheart yanked the door open.
* * *
Dewey went right. A tall Pakistani soldier turned and sprinted, running desperately toward the corner of the hallway.
Dewey charged at him, submachine gun out and firing full into hail. Silenced bullets tore the wall; the bullet line approached the escaping soldier just as he rounded the corner, out of sight.
Dewey ran in pursuit of the fleeing soldier, trying to stop him before he could alert Karreff.
* * *
A moment after Dewey charged right, Iverheart and Millar moved left. Two more soldiers were standing in the corner, smoking cigarettes.
They barely had time to register the death of the first soldier.
Millar stayed low, in a crouch, his silenced MP7 in front of him. Iverheart was trailing just behind, silenced MP7 aimed just inches above Millar’s head.
Millar fired first, putting a hole in the first soldier’s forehead. The second man raised his UZI and fired wildly as he turned and ran down the hall toward Karreff’s apartment.
Millar charged down the corridor and dived just before the corner. He rolled with the machine gun in his right hand out in front of him. He landed on the hard linoleum in the same instant he pulled the trigger of the MP7.