Authors: Stephen England
She hesitated, for one long moment in time. To cross the line between law enforcer and law breaker. Or perhaps she had already crossed that line, concealing her presence at the site of Vic’s murder.
Nothing was black and white.
Not anymore.
She drew her Glock, motioning toward the door.
“Follow me in.”
2:27 P.M. Pacific Time
The industrial park
Los Angeles
“Dear God,” Korsakov whispered, running a hand through his close-cropped hair. It was a particularly odd expression coming from his lips, but it
all
seemed unreal, even after hearing Viktor’s story for the second time.
It was not that the assassin was unaccustomed to brutality. It was a means to achieve an end. But this…
He wrapped an arm around the boy’s trembling shoulders, drawing him close as they sat together on a stack of pallets near the Suburban. The Glock lay discarded a few feet away.
No longer a threat.
“Why did you not come to me, Vitya? All of this, this misunderstanding—it could have been avoided.”
And yet what would he have done differently, Korsakov asked himself. He did not choose his contracts based on the “morality” of his employer, and at his very core, the story did not surprise him. Andropov had always been a turbulent man. The idea that he could have whipped a teenage prostitute to death after repeatedly violating her body…it was not at all unbelievable. Yet, as he viewed it through Viktor’s eyes, the story filled him with horror. Revulsion.
It didn’t change what he had to do.
Tears rolled unchecked down the boy’s cheeks as he slipped in and out of a near-catatonic state. He needed sleep, reassurance, comfort. Everything that Korsakov was unable to provide.
Not now.
With gentle fingers, he brushed the matted hair back from Viktor’s forehead. Feeling the boy’s grief. “This can all be over, Vitya—we can leave this all behind us and be back in Russia within the week. But first you must unlock the laptop…”
4:31 P.M. Central Time
The mosque
Dearborn, Michigan
Marika held the Glock in both hands, the tactical light below the barrel switched on as she led the way down a long hallway. The light cast strange shadows against the cheap wood paneling, keeping her on edge.
The floor sloped beneath her feet, leading them down—it was more of a ramp, than anything, she realized. Freshly poured, by the looks of the concrete.
The ground floor of the mosque had been deserted, just as she had suspected. If it hadn’t been…well, there was no use thinking about that now.
“Don’t like the looks of this,” Russell observed as they reached the door at the bottom of the ramp. The short man stepped around her, his flashlight clenched between his teeth as he reached up, fingering the seal. “Airtight.”
“Why do you need an airtight room in a mosque?” It was a rhetorical question, and they both knew it.
You didn’t.
He tried the knob. It was unlocked. Just waiting to be entered.
Russell cleared his throat. “I think this is the point where we bring in the rest of the Bureau.”
“And tell them what?” Marika asked, shaking her head. “That we found a strange door while executing a warrantless search?”
Without waiting for a reply, she stepped forward, the Glock in her right hand as she pulled the door open. There was a rush of air as the seals opened, cold air striking her in the face.
She moved into the darkness, feeling the chill pierce through her clothing. The beams of their tactical lights swept the room, a rare curse escaping from Russell’s lips as he spotted a piece of equipment near the far wall.
“You wanted something to report?” he whispered. “Report this: we’re standing in some kind of weapons lab.”
5:23 P.M. Mountain Time
Grand Junction, Colorado
A burger and fries. Salty, the way Americans liked their food. Nasir shook the last of the fries out onto his tray, looking at the golden arches-emblazoned red carton for a moment before crumpling the flimsy cardboard in his fist.
The manager had gone out of his way to assure them that the food was kosher. It was as close as they were going to come to
halal
in the Rocky Mountains. Nasir shook his head. Even here, the reach of the Jew was undiminished.
He glanced across the table into the eyes of Abu Kareem al-Fileestini. The imam picked a chicken nugget off his tray with two fingers and popped it into his mouth, a faint smile crossing his lips. “Noori would have frowned upon this meal. Too fattening, she would have said. She was a good woman—knew her place—but that didn’t stop her from watching out for my weight.”
“Was?”
Sadness crept into the eyes of the imam. “My wife has been dead for five years. You didn’t know that, did you?”
Nasir shook his head.
“No matter,” Abu Kareem replied dismissively. “There was no way you could have known. I always regretted that your work did not permit you to attend prayers at the masjid with your brother. We could have gotten to know one another.”
The tips of Nasir’s fingers began to tremble, almost imperceptibly. Fear seizing hold. The imam was a man of subtlety, not one given to idle words.
He swallowed hard, feeling the salt of the fries dry and rough against his tongue.
“Everything you told Omar—about you acquiring the commercial driver’s license…”Abu Kareem’s voice trailed off for a long moment as his eyes met Nasir’s. “It checked out. All of it.”
Relief flooded his body and he struggled to keep it out of his eyes, out of his voice. Anything that might betray him now, in his moment of safety.
“You doubted it?”
The imam shrugged. “Ever since I entered the
Dar el Harb
, thirty long years ago, I doubt all things—save the will of Allah.”
“Fair enough,” Nasir replied, forcing a smile to his face. “May His name be glorified.”
He watched as the older man took a small bottle from his coat pocket, shaking two round capsules into his palm.
“Pain medication,” Abu Kareem said, answering the unasked question. “The doctors tell me that I have only a few months left to live. Cancer.”
“There’s no treatment?”
“None that could save my life—by the time they found it, it had spread all through my lungs.”
He looked up, visibly hesitating. “I do not wish Tarik to know of this—I am trusting you to keep this secret, my son. It is the last wish of my life that I die as I have lived, in the service of God.”
6:19 P.M. Pacific Time
The empty mansion
Beverly Hills, California
The Suburban that had left earlier in the day was returning, the remotely-controlled gates of the Andropov mansion swinging open wide to admit it.
Han raised the camera, adjusting the telephoto lens as he snapped picture after picture. It was a fruitless exercise, given the blacked-out windows and the fact that he already had the license number.
Alpha-one-five-Bravo-Papa-Delta
.
But it was training, old reflexes taking back over. Being in special ops was like riding a bicycle. Some things, you never forgot.
No matter how hard you tried.
He was laying prone on a dirty mattress, the stock of a sniper rifle pressed against his shoulder. Watching a street full of people through the scope, each of them only a hair’s-breadth away from death. Ciudad del Este. Paraguay.
One target.
His hands trembled at the unbidden memory, and he lowered the camera, realizing suddenly that he was sweating, a thin sheen of perspiration covering his forearms.
Get a grip
.
He passed a hand over his face, walking back through the empty rooms of the house until he arrived at the kitchen.
“The Suburban is back,” the former SEAL announced, glancing over toward where Carol sat. “Couldn’t get an ID on the driver.”
She acknowledged his words with a nod. “Harry called—they had just crossed the city limits of Las Vegas. Still shadowing Andropov.”
“And they’ve not been detected?” Han pursed his lips together. “That’s impressive.”
“I hope so,” she murmured. “If they’ve been able to stay behind them this long—Vasiliev must be good at what he does.”
“Vasiliev…is the best,” Han replied, laying the camera on the granite of the kitchen’s island. “He made it through the hell of Afghanistan in the eighties, stayed alive in the middle of the power struggles that followed the dissolution of the USSR. He’s a survivor. I’ve never met anyone like him.”
“I wish Harry hadn’t gone with him,” Carol observed, her voice suddenly brittle. “It’s not safe.”
He looked at her for a long moment, sadness growing in his eyes. He knew that tone.
Sherri
.
All those years, and he could still hear the pain in his wife’s voice, still feel the tension as they spent their last night together before deployment. Before Yemen.
He remembered her body shuddering as she lay in his arms, tears falling from her eyes. It was as though she had
known
. Their souls inextricably linked.
“You care for him, don’t you?” The words came out more abruptly than he intended, but there was no reaction. Not for a painfully long moment.
“There are moments…” She hesitated as if searching for the right words, still not looking at him. “Moments when I see another side of him…and in those moments I tell myself that this is a man I could love.”
The SEAL stared down at his hands, big fingers splayed against the granite. Memories.
“Don’t do this to yourself.”
She turned toward him, disbelief and anger playing across her features. “What do you mean?”
He fell silent for a moment. “Harry is one of the few men I truly respect—there was a time in my life when I would have crossed hell in a rubber raft had he given the order. It doesn’t change one simple reality: he’s going to end up just like me.”
There was no response. He could see her fingers trembling, whether from anger or fear, he couldn’t tell. When the phone rang a moment later, she didn’t move to answer it.
He picked the cellphone off the countertop, answering it with a simple, “Hello.”
It was Harry.
The SEAL listened without commenting for a couple minutes, then responded, “We’ll keep you updated from our end.”
He closed the phone, turning back to Carol. “They’ve lost Andropov.”
9:59 P.M. Eastern Time
Graves Mill, Virginia
Open ground. The sniper in him hated it. Thomas moved out from cover, the stubble of a snow-frosted corn field jabbing through his skin. The briars in the hedgerow of multiflora behind him had already pulled and tugged at his makeshift ghillie suit, but he preferred it to the nakedness of the open field.
You never got to choose your tactical environment. Or your conditions. There were some forms of cover you couldn’t
see
from. He lifted a small pair of binoculars to his eyes, staring across the mounded snow, toward the mobile home nestled beneath a copse of trees at the edge of the field. A single vehicle in the driveway. A light in a rear window, presumably a bedroom by the placement.
“What’s your sitrep, LONGBOW?” Tex’s voice, crackling through the static on his earpiece.
“I’m in position.” Thomas glanced at his watch, marking the time.
Twenty-two hundred hours
. “Watch and wait.”
8:45 P.M. Pacific Time
Downtown Las Vegas,
Nevada
The security camera was smashed in the parking garage where Vasiliev parked the Taurus. An old act of vandalism, judging by the weathering of the cracked plastic housing. As if it had been broken the previous year and no one had possessed the time or money needed to replace it.
“Leave your pistol in the car,” Vasiliev instructed as Harry opened the door.
Harry looked at him. Just because he knew why didn’t mean he had to like it. “It’s only five blocks to the club, and you can’t get inside with it.” A smile crossed the Russian’s face. “Just because the place is run by the
mafiya
, don’t think that we’re completely lawless.”
He opened the center console and pulled out a pair of Bluetooth earpieces. “We’ll use these to stay in contact if we need to separate. The miracle of technology,
tovarisch
. Twenty years ago, sitting at a bar with a wire protruding from your ear—you might as well tattoo
spy
on your forehead. But now…”
It also made identifying your opponents a lot harder, Harry thought, briefly testing the device to make sure it worked. For every technology, there was a downside. And a countermeasure.
“I assume it’s occurred to you that someone may recognize you, Alexei. You are the consulate’s head of security, after all.”
Vasiliev came around the end of the car, taking in Harry’s worn leather jacket and faded jeans at a glance. “It has. In point of fact, I am counting on it. Your fashion sense certainly isn’t going to get us past the bouncer.”
11:04 P.M. Central Time
The mosque
Dearborn, Michigan
If there was one thing Marika had learned about the Bureau over her years of service, it was that subtlety wasn’t their strong suit. In the hours following Russell’s call, they had descended on the mosque in force—forty agents at last count.
Snow crunched beneath her feet as she ducked under the crime scene tape, heading for her car. Behind her the mosque was bathed in floodlights, ahead the Dearborn PD had officers stationed, keeping the crowd back. At least fifteen officers, a sizable percentage of their entire force.
Russell was already in the passenger seat of the sedan, his thermos raised to his lips. “Find out anything?”
The response from Washington had been impressive, but it didn’t mean Haskel was pleased with their efforts. They’d both been sidelined, for the second time in a week. She shook her head. “They don’t know anything to tell. The place is sterile—and Abu Kareem’s lawyer arrived five minutes ago.”
The negotiator nodded patiently. “Any idea where his employer is?”
“Negative. Not likely to find out either, not for days. All that, and all we have is a hermetically sealed room. No trace of any toxins, nothing.” A wry smile turned up her lips. “I think we did ourselves in this time, Russ. Sorry to take you down with me.”
He shrugged. “I’ll be fine. Spend some time with my grandkids. They’re growing up fast. Go on that deep-sea fishing trip my brother is always talking about.”
My brother
.
“Hand me my laptop,” Marika instructed suddenly, pulling off her gloves and turning the car’s heater all the way up.
“What are you thinking?”
“Something our CI said.” She balanced the laptop on her knees, opening the FBI database. Her access codes still worked, though it was hard to tell for how much longer. “Nasir’s roommate—the university student—what was his name?”
“Jamal al-Khalidi,” Russell said, after a moment’s thought. The negotiator never forgot a name.
“What was his major?”
“We didn’t check.”
Marika scrolled down the screen. “I’m thinking that was a mistake. According to this…he was a chemist, enrolled in their postgraduate program. Going for his Master’s.”
“Are you sayin’…”
“Worse,” she replied, pulling up two photos side by side on the screen. “Look at this.”
An expression of surprise crossed the negotiator’s face. “They’re brothers.”
“Our CI lied to us.”
9:23 P.M. Pacific Time
The club
Las Vegas, Nevada
The world over, gentlemen’s clubs were all built around one central theme. The casual observer might have said that it was sex, but the truth was far more elemental.
Power.
Being above the law was its own aphrodisiac, as men like Andropov knew so well.
The music was still slow this early in the evening, the tension just starting to build. Piano music, supplied by a grey-haired man up there stage left, his thin fingers dancing over the ivory keys.
“Any sign of Andropov?” Harry asked, nursing his club soda as his eyes moved around the club.
“Negative,
tovarisch
. But I am certain this is where he would come. The man’s…how would you say? A security freak. Here among the
mafiya
, he is safe.”
“And this safety extends to you as well?” Harry leaned back in his chair, hands resting easily on the tabletop. Only inches away from his gun, had he worn it. After all these years, the posture came naturally.
Vasiliev shrugged. “In Russia, the government is the
mafiya
and the
mafiya
is the government. Doesn’t pay to piss either party off. We have what I would call a…‘working relationship’.”
“You come here often?”
“Often enough,” the Russian replied, turning his shot glass between his fingers. “If I have an asset in need of cultivation. It’s the atmosphere, I think. The liquor. The women. Men talk under such circumstances…and even more later on, when they fear the danger of their wife seeing the pictures.”
It was the way the game was played. The way it had always been played.
“I’ll be glad to be out,” he said, more to himself than Vasiliev. “Put this life behind me.”
His gaze drifted toward the bar, momentarily catching the eye of a young prostitute working the johns there. She looked Eastern European, dark-haired and artificially tanned.
Maybe eighteen or nineteen at the most.
Prostitution was officially illegal in Vegas, but such regulations were subject to such nuance and parsing as to be effectively useless. It didn’t protect girls like her.
“Tell me we’re not wasting our time sitting here.”
“We’re not,” Vasiliev retorted evenly, reaching into his shirt pocket. Gold glinted between his fingers as he slid a coin across the table toward Harry.
“What’s this?” It was a ten-ruble coin from 1911, the face of Tsar Nicholas II decorating the obverse. Pure gold, evident from its heft.
“It is a key,
tovarisch
.” A smile. “And oh, the doors that it will open.”
He flipped it between his fingers, staring at the double-headed eagle of imperial Russia. “Cut to the chase, Alexei.”
“When doing business with the
mafiya
, it is always good to have an edge…cards under the table, if you will. Take the piano player for instance—his stage name is Mike Carroll. His real name is Mikhail…”
The Russian lifted the shot glass to his lips, grimacing as the vodka slid down his throat. He smiled. “If Andropov has been through these doors tonight, Mike will know. Go talk to him. I have your back.”
The chords of “Some Enchanted Evening” rose from the piano as Harry rose from the table, the man’s fingers conveying a vibrant touch.
Harry paused as the pianist began to sing, a mellow voice rising above the low murmur of the club noise. It was an incongruous song for the surroundings, a throwback to a simpler day.
A song of hope. Of love. Never in his life had he been able to carry a tune, but he found himself humming along, despite himself.
A dream—of another life. No more deception. No more pain.
He glanced over to find the young prostitute staring at him, her face bringing him back to reality. He had a mission to perform.
The pianist glanced up at him as he stepped onto the stage, a gentle smile crossing the old man’s face.
It wasn’t the face of an operator…or was it?
Harry’s hands came out of his jacket, the coin in one palm, the photo of Andropov in the other. “Have you seen this man?” he asked in perfect Russian.
“Who are you?” the man asked, his voice low. The smile was still plastered to his face, but he had paled—fingers trembling as he spoke.
“My name doesn’t matter,
tovarisch
. You know who sent me.”
The pianist cast a long glance out into the darkness of the club. “I do,” he replied slowly, turning toward Harry. “The man you are looking for…arrived an hour ago. He and his bodyguards are in the VIP.”
“Is there anyone in there with them?”
A shake of the head. “No. They’re waiting…”
9:58 P.M. Pacific Time
A warehouse, North Las Vegas
Nevada
The taillights of the tractor-trailer glowed red against the sheet metal of the warehouse as Nasir tapped the brakes, holding his breath as the big truck eased back, passing within inches of the doorframe as it rolled under cover.
He looked over into the smiling eyes of the negro. “Hey, bro, you survived.”
Yeah. The irony of the words did not escape him. They were all on a suicide mission. All to be welcomed to paradise soon enough, if paradise indeed awaited the evil-doer. Nasir shoved open the truck door, feeling the chill night air envelop his tired limbs. It had been a long drive.
Tarik Abdul Muhammad was standing in the middle of the warehouse floor, flanked by the remnants of his Pakistani contingent. A round metal barrel was before them, flames leaping from its depths—casting strange shadows against the shaikh’s face.
“We are entering the final stages of the project, my brothers. Tonight we take delivery of the weapons that will enable us to strike a blow against the
khafir
, a blow for the freedom of our people.”
Freedom?
The jihadis, and he among them, had brought down the wrath of the Jews upon the whole of Lebanon, leaving the once-beautiful Beirut in ruins. Was that freedom—an end to be desired?
“Most of you disposed of your cellphones and personal electronics before even starting this journey. If you did not, do so now. We cannot have the Americans listening in at this critical hour. Not with what has happened.”
“What’s going on?” It was Abu Kareem, standing just within the shadows. If he had been kept out of the loop…
“I have heard from one of our brothers in Michigan,” Tarik replied, slowly turning his head to face the imam. “The
masjid
was raided within hours of our departure.”
A gasp went up from the assembled jihadis, and Nasir felt himself joining in, even if there were different reasons for his fear.
“Even now the American FBI may be looking for us,” the shaikh announced, his eyes darting back and forth. Searching the faces before him.
Abu Kareem cleared his throat. “Do we need to move up the timing of the attack?”
“The attack will proceed as planned,
Insh’allah
.” Tarik looked away for a moment, his voice taking on a new intensity. “It
must
. And they will be powerless to stop us. This is the moment that we disappear from the Americans’ eyes—from their mighty technology. For surely it was spoken by the Prophet, peace be upon him, ‘It is God's Law that He brings down whatever rises high in the world’. Now…your phones."
To Nasir’s left, Omar moved forward, removing his cellphone from his shirt pocket and tossing it into the flames.
He looked up to see the shaikh staring directly at him, his eyes seeming to glow in the light of the fire. As if he knew.
Making a desperate effort to ignore the fear clawing at his heart, Nasir took a step toward the fire, reaching into his back pocket to retrieve his phone. His last connection to the FBI.
His lifeline.
He watched as it fell into the flames, watched until the battery exploded in the heat of the inferno. Until it was consumed.
Now he was in the hands of Allah. As ever…
10:32 P.M.
The club
Las Vegas, Nevada
There were four guards within sight, not including anyone that might be guarding the entrance to the VIP—each of them wearing a Sig Sauer P226 in a prominent hip holster.
The fact that they were—to a man—focused on the stripper that had just walked on-stage belied whatever aura of professionalism their choice of weaponry might have given them.
Harry leaned back in his chair, tuning out the music and flashing strobes as he calculated the distance between himself and the nearest guard. Seven meters. If he needed a gun, taking one would not be difficult.