The Forgotten Soldier: A Pike Logan Thriller (33 page)

65

G
uy found himself nodding off, his head actually hitting the driver’s-side window. He snapped awake, looking toward the small guard shack. He saw a blip of activity from the bored Greek national inside. The man was staring at the ramp leading under the building. Something was happening, the guard shack alone belying that this was a simple office building.

It would seem strange to an American who was used to seeing the power projection of the United States overseas, with embassies full of flag waving and imposing blocks of granite, but the Embassy of Qatar was located on the third floor of an office complex built over a bike shop and auto parts store, out on a lonely stretch of road in the northern part of Athens. One wouldn’t even know the building had anything to do with Qatar except for a lone flag flying on the roof and a restricted entryway guarded by the Greeks.

Like a lot of countries in the world, Qatar had no need to advertise their presence. In fact, doing so would only open them up to security risks they had every reason to avoid. And so they had an embassy inside an office building, with minimal indication it even existed. It worked fine for them. Unlike the United States, there wasn’t exactly a line of people fighting for a visa from Qatar.

Guy focused on the guard’s actions. When he saw him press a button, and the drop bar to the concrete ramp rose, he leaned forward,
hand on the ignition. As he saw an Audi crest the steep drive from the underground garage, he turned the keys. When he saw the man in the passenger seat, he pulled out, tagging two cars behind.

He dragged anchor as they moved through traffic, going steadily north. He thought the car would head back into the city, but it didn’t, and he regretted sitting and waiting, wasting his chance. Infiltrating the underground garage beneath the building would have been a significant challenge, but he might have missed his opportunity. While they didn’t advertise their presence, Qatar had invested heavily in security. He could probably penetrate, but he was positive he’d be on camera after the killings. Something for the police to tear apart. So he’d opted to wait.

The Audi drove steadily, now heading west. Thirty minutes later, Guy wondered where it was going. He thought it was to one of the suburbs surrounding the city, perhaps to continue their criminal activity—something he would really love to interdict—but the car entered 75, a major highway that threaded out of the city to the hinterlands of the rest of Greece. Clearly, they had a purpose, and it wasn’t in Athens.

Guy stayed behind them, the trip passing an hour and the car continuing on the highway. His mind drifted, thinking of the endgame. Thinking of the destruction, and the follow on, or the lack thereof.

He was going to complete his mission—kill his man—and get nothing from it. Nothing but revenge. He had the safe-deposit key, but couldn’t access it by himself.

They drove on, steadily going northwest, the road stretching out, passing tourist buses and making him wonder where they were headed.

His mind toyed with the mission over and over, trying to feel the vindication he had before. He thought about Pike Logan. About the meeting on the ferry. He had so wanted them to join him. So wanted absolution. Pike, of all people, understood what he was doing. Pike
had lost family, and had exacted his revenge. Nobody talked about it out loud, but everyone knew he’d killed a man in interrogation isolation. A devil who was a terrorist and deserved it. But also a man who’d murdered Pike’s family.

Pike was a stone-cold killer. An Operator whom some people in the Taskforce feared but everyone respected, and Guy believed he was the same. He
knew
it. He just wanted someone else to tell him it was so.

Pike’s face sprang into his memory from when he’d walked away on the ferry. A mixture of fear and pity. He did not want to be remembered that way. He didn’t
deserve
to be remembered that way.

Two hours into the trip, blindly following the Audi in front, winding into the mountains of northern Greece, he made his decision. He’d kill the fucks who’d murdered his brother, then turn himself in. He still had the key to the safe-deposit box, and he was sure it would vindicate him. Once the Taskforce found the information it held, they’d back off.

He was in the right. Just like Pike.

He came out of his thoughts when the Audi pulled to the side of the road, into one of many parking slots that had appeared while he was lost in thought. He passed by it, ignoring the passengers and staring straight ahead, finding the next available spot on the small, two-lane road.

He pulled in, then assessed where he was.

A tourist spot, of that he was sure because of the number of cars. He glanced around, and found a sign just outside of the parking area, proclaiming the hours of a museum.

Delphi
.

The target had parked downhill from the archeological site of the famous Delphi ruins, but why?

The answer came as soon as he thought of the question: The target
was conducting a personal meet, and using the expansive grounds as cover.

Which meant they’d all leave the car.

He picked up his cloned key fob, rubbing it with his thumb like a talisman.

Perfect
.

66

T
he encrypted tunnel for our computer hookup made Colonel Kurt Hale’s voice sound a bit mechanical, but it was doing little to hide his anger. He was pissed, and not in the usual “Pike will be Pike” way.

“Before I cut your nuts off and serve them to the Oversight Council on a platter, I want to be sure: You saw some people you
thought
were bad, and then interdicted them? In the hopes of interrogating an Arab that you had no Omega authority to capture? And the asshole escaped? Did I just summarize that correctly?”

Wow
. When he put it that way, it did sound sort of bad.

We’d come back from the operation a day ago, and I’d opted to wait for the scheduled contact to report, mainly because we hadn’t captured anyone and none of our team had any injuries. We’d escaped clean, and I was fairly sure that the Arab wasn’t filing a police report. For her part, Carly would say nothing, as she was operating outside of the CIA, and so I’d decided that no flash message was necessary. A report right after wouldn’t have altered anything on my end, but it could have altered a vote on Alpha authority from the Oversight Council. Because of that, I’d decided that reporting early wasn’t in the team’s best interest, or Guy’s. All I’d catch was the wrath of Kurt Hale, and I could wait for that. Hell, it wasn’t like he was going
to tell me anything new. I’d already had a hammering from the teammates at the after-action review.

Back in the hotel, we, as a team, held a clinical, antiseptic inspection of every detail of the mission to learn what went right, and what could have gone better, the point being to spread any lessons across the force. As team leader, I made sure that nobody was immune from criticism—me included—but also that nobody was attacked out of anger or animosity.

Five minutes in, I was thinking maybe this one wasn’t that necessary, since the only consternation seemed to be my deciding to hit the guys in the park in the first place. Knuckles was on my side, with Jennifer saying it was absolutely counterproductive. Jennifer’s points—that we could have evacuated Carly without any drama, and we had no Omega authority for a takedown—were valid, but had it gone the other way, it would be a whole different conversation, which meant that it wasn’t worth dwelling on. But for some reason, Jennifer did.

Brett backed up Jennifer, and poor Nick sat in the middle, afraid to commit either way. Jennifer really didn’t want to talk about the actions themselves, which piqued my interest. I certainly didn’t want to detail what had happened to me, but I did, because the team needed to know what they were up against with that Arab. It was embarrassing, but necessary, and I was curious why Jennifer was staying away from her fight, preferring to harp on the overarching decision.

She was hiding something.

I asked her to walk me through her part of the mission, and she did, which sounded pretty solid. She brought up some points about communication and flow, and it sounded fairly normal. Like the takedown hadn’t been any issue at all.

I asked, “So how did Veep here get his face clocked?”

Nick’s nose had been bloodied and he had a cut below his eye,
meaning something hadn’t gone smoothly. Before he could speak, Jennifer defended him, saying, “He did just fine.”

I looked at Nick, waiting. Embarrassed, he glanced at Jennifer, then said, “Okay, okay, I wasn’t ready. I lost control of my target and I almost cost both of us.”

His hangdog face was almost comical. He looked like he was waiting on me to hand him a plane ticket home, not realizing it was the perfect answer, and that I was pleased. I could tell he’d already internalized the lessons and that the admission was very, very painful.

There was nothing like thinking you’re the hero only to have to admit you’re a zero.

Jennifer was glaring at me, daring me to tear into him, like I did it for sport. I realized she was still learning. Still thought these AARs were nothing more than an Alpha-male dick-measuring contest. It could be a teaching point for both of them.

I smiled and said, “Well, at least your guy went down. I’m still chasing mine.”

I saw the relief flood through him, and Knuckles gave me a wink. Jennifer looked a little shocked that I didn’t rip him apart, which I’d correct once we were in private. When I could rib her a little bit about her lost-puppy protective instincts. It wasn’t doing Nick any favors.

After the AAR, we’d spent the rest of the time tracking Guy’s phone and spitballing various courses of action for bringing him in, waiting on the Oversight Council to give us our big ticket for the attempt: Alpha authority against the Arab contingent.

We’d identified his hotel, then followed his phone signature around the city, just keeping tabs, but I never got the call from Kurt. Finally, I’d reached my window of contact with the Taskforce.

When I reported in, the commo guy on the other end had said, “Hang on, Pike. Colonel Hale told me to get him when you called.” Which wasn’t what I wanted to hear. And now I was
really
not hearing any love.

I said, “Sir, okay, maybe it wasn’t the best decision, but you want Guy back, the Arab is on his target deck, he was hunting Carly because of her connection to Guy, and it was within my in extremis authority. It was a good call, but it didn’t work out.”

“Didn’t work out. Really.”

The sarcasm was so thick I could have put it on a bagel. I waited, mute.

Kurt sighed, then looked at the ceiling. He returned to the screen and said, “So you didn’t bother to call in this little escapade because, why?”

“Because it was no harm, no foul. It didn’t require a flash message.”

“You mean because it would have affected the Council vote on giving you Alpha for the very Arab you attacked.”

He wasn’t asking a question. I said, “Well, yeah, sir. I knew you’d have to report it.”

He chuckled at my honesty, shaking his head. “Okay . . . you’d have been right. No way would they have given Alpha with those shenanigans. Especially with Billings on the vote.”

I perked up. “Are you saying what I think you are? They did?”

“Yeah. They did. President Warren weighed in, based on my judgment, which in hindsight looks a little suspect.”

Brett knocked on the door, saying, “Coming in.”

Kurt heard and said, “Who is it?”

I said, “Brett,” then turned from the screen. “What’s up?”

“Guy’s on the move again, and it’s way north. It’s a spike. He’s not running around the city anymore. Knuckles thinks he’s operational.”

From the computer, Kurt said, “North where?”

I scooted over, letting Brett slide into the screen. “Way north of Athens. Like two hours away.”

“Near Delphi?”

Brett looked startled and said, “Actually, yeah. Not ‘near’ Delphi. He’s stopped at the Delphi ruins.”

Kurt became brusque, all business. “Pike, Secretary Billings is meeting the first target on Guy’s list. A man named Haider al-Attiya. It’s a clandestine linkup to discuss a potential peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and it’s happening at the Delphi ruins. He
cannot
interrupt that.”

Holy cow. That’s bad.

Guy had no idea, I was sure. In his quest for revenge, he was about to aid the very terrorists he hated.

I turned to Brett. “Get the team up and moving.” He went running out of the room and I returned to the screen, saying, “Sir, they’re two hours away. I don’t know if I can interdict Guy in time.”

He said, “Do what you can. I’m on it. I’ll warn Billings.”

“That’s not going to be enough. Billings is like a damn petulant child. He’ll probably ignore you, if he even answers his phone.”

“Best I can do. I never trusted these back-channel diplomacy things, so I convinced the president to at least send a case officer with him. He should be able to do something even if Billings won’t.”

Carly’s words about a meeting came back.
Jesus. She’s the case officer.

“Sir, that case officer I was telling you about in the park—Guy’s friend from Decoy’s past—she’s the one on it. She told me, but I didn’t put it together before. I was going to use her to pull in Guy, but she told me she was committed with the SECSTATE. It has to be this meeting.”

“You got her number? That would cut through some red tape.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. I’ll call her on the move. We need to get Billings to stay in the park until we can get there.”

“I’ll do what I can, but like you said, he doesn’t really listen to me. Call me secure from the road.”

I glanced back, making sure the room was empty, then returned to the screen. About to disconnect, Kurt saw the change in my demeanor and said, “What?”

“Sir . . . I saw what Guy has become. He’s got the skill and he’s got the desire. He’s going to kill his target, and there’s nothing on earth we can do about it.”

“I don’t need to hear that shit.
You
were like him, and you came back.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and said, “I know. I know. That’s
exactly
what I mean.”

I looked at the screen, my boss uncertain where I was coming from. Kurt not wanting to believe, but the tendrils of the beast inside me knew it like an absolute truth.

I said, “Someone’s going to die today, and nothing you or I do will alter that.”