A Touch of Deceit (Nick Bracco Series #1) (43 page)

Angel had heard the rumors about terrorists hiding out in the Payson area and it spooked him. His name was in the paper as the person who found Fred and he wondered if the terrorists knew that he had seen the killer. In fact, he knew exactly where the killer lived. It was the reason why he never said anything to the Sheriff. What kind of protection would he get? A patrol car might drive by a couple of times a day, but what good would that do him? He figured he had a better chance of staying alive by keeping his mouth shut and letting it go.

It seemed like a good plan until he heard the noise outside of his cabin sounding like something moving. Angel’s wife, Mabel, was in the basement doing laundry, so he knew it wasn’t her. He waited to hear more. Nothing. Maybe a branch scraping up against the siding, like it always did whenever the wind picked up. He glanced out of his living room window and saw there was no wind. Not a breath.

He turned back toward the TV and saw, “Breaking News,” at the bottom of the screen. He raised the volume and took a pull on his bottle of beer. The screen went blank for a moment, then a local newswoman was standing in front of a familiar landmark.

“Theresa Sanchez reporting for Channel 3 News. I’m live at the Winchester Bar and Grill, where a shooting took place just minutes ago.”

Angel almost choked on his half-swallowed beer. He’d planned to head down to the Winchester after dinner. The woman held her hand to her ear as if someone was talking to her through an earphone, maybe even telling her what to say. “Eyewitnesses have told Channel 3 News that Max Gordon, owner of the Winchester, was shot and rushed to the hospital. We also have reports that a dark-haired man in a white tee shirt was seen running from the scene shortly after the shots. It is yet to be confirmed whether this event is related to the terrorist organization reportedly hiding somewhere in the Payson vicinity. We will keep you informed with any breaking news as it happens. Theresa Sanchez, Channel 3 news.”

Another sound, this time from the backyard. Angel shut off the TV. He crept to the kitchen and turned off the overhead lights. He peeked past the curtain hanging over the sink. It was dead still. Angel squinted into the tree line behind his cabin. He thought he saw something. He squinted harder and his peripheral vision became hyperactive with movement. If he stared straight at something it wouldn’t budge, but everything around it seemed to come alive with motion. Someone was out there.

He pulled open a kitchen drawer and grabbed a long carving knife. His senses swirled with suspicion. He thought he heard a man’s voice. He picked up the telephone hanging on the wall. The line was dead.

Shit. His gun was in the glove box of his truck out front like always. Just great.

He thought about hiding down in the basement. Maybe buy himself some time. But he couldn’t get rid of the vision of Fred Wilson’s headless body, spurting blood like a dropped bottle of red wine. He wasn’t dealing with any local punks, that was for sure. These guys were the real deal. Hiding would only delay the inevitable. Better to face them head on.

The doorbell rang. Angel felt his legs tense with fear. He struggled to the basement door and saw his wife’s feet at the bottom of the stairs, sorting laundry, her purple robe almost dragging the floor. “Mabel,” he said in a forced hush. “Stay down there until I tell you to come up.”

“Why?” Mabel asked over the hum of the dryer.

“Just do as I say,” Angel said.

The doorbell rang again, only this time it was followed by a couple of urgent thumps on the front door.

“Damn,” Angel said. He crept to the door. He placed his hand on the doorknob and became paralyzed with fear. A pounding fist shook the door. He thought the frame was going to give out. He tightened his grip on the knife, tucked it behind his thigh and threw open the door as quickly as possible, trying to startle whoever was on the other side.

He froze.

A bright spotlight engulfed his entire doorway. Angel squinted and held his arm up to shade his eyes. Two men in navy windbreakers stood on his porch. Behind them, he could see the silhouettes of men wearing military fatigues crouched into an attack mode. A couple of dozen. Maybe more. Each had a machine gun pointed at him. He heard a helicopter approaching, then glanced up, blinded by another spotlight shining down on him. When his vision adjusted, he saw two military men leaned over the open door of the chopper with their eyes tucked behind the scope of a couple of powerful looking rifles.

He was overwhelmed with the scene and was trying to make sense of it when the dark-haired man on his porch said, “Are you Angel?”

They had to be from the government, he thought, or he’d be dead already. There was no advantage to lying. They wouldn’t be the gullible type like those Angel swindled out of a couple of hundred bucks every weekend at the Winchester. They wouldn’t send this much force just to be deterred by some creative storytelling. He suddenly became aware of the knife he was still gripping tightly by his side. “That’s what my friends call me,” he said, in a voice too scared to speak slowly.

The two men at his doorstep were the only ones not pointing a weapon at him. They appeared unconcerned about any danger Angel might pose. The dark-haired man turned to his partner and gave him a look. The man nodded. He looked at Angel and held up a gold shield. Then, with the coldest stare he’d ever seen, the man said, “We’re not your friends, Angel.”

Angel dropped the carving knife to the floor.

* * *

Kemel Kharrazi fought fatigue as he ascended the wooden staircase and left the basement of the safe house for the first time that day. A mild autumn breeze greeted him at the door to the living room and he took in a breath of fresh air. He’d spent the entire day monitoring communications and preparing for his departure. As front man for the KSF, he understood how important it was for him to escape capture. As long as he remained at large, his threats would carry the weight of the number one terrorist in the world. A distinction he neither relished nor cared about. But he knew enough to use its credentials to get what he needed.

Conversations dissolved into quiet as Kharrazi strode toward the kitchen with a sense of purpose. The kitchen was a large room with a high ceiling, but it was overmatched by the throng of soldiers who were crammed into the area. The gathering of warriors parted seamlessly as Kharrazi walked unencumbered to a step-stool in the corner of the room. The kitchen was a mere shell of what it had been before the KSF inhabitation. Cabinet doors had been removed, allowing easy access to twelve gauge shotgun shells and cartridges for Magnum autoloader rifles. Handheld rocket launchers were stacked on the countertops next to cases of heavy caliber ammunition.

Kharrazi uncorked a bottle of Turkish Merlot sitting next to a canister of .44 Magnum magazines and poured a glass of wine. As he drew the wine to his lips he heard the murmur from his dedicated force behind him. He turned and stood on the step stool and appraised his soldiers. They spilled into the living room of the A-frame and craned their necks for a glimpse of their leader. They were excited to be the chosen ones. Thirty of them in camouflage gear and blackface who Kharrazi had taken from their families, smuggled into a foreign country, and convinced to take the fight to the Americans on their own turf. Some of them he’d known since they were teenagers. Most had grown up idolizing him the way American kids would idolize a rock star.

“It is a glorious day to be a Kurd.” Kemel Kharrazi raised his wine glass and brought smiles to the faces of the usually scowling soldiers.

Kharrazi peered down into his wine glass and focused on the vortex his swirls had created. The lives of his men teetered in his hands with the same vulnerability. He knew the minute Nick Bracco had discovered the wire in the sheriff’s office that the FBI would come after them hard. Overwhelmingly hard. His soldiers would inevitably fight to their death, but the outcome was of little consequence. The detonator was unsolvable, rendering it impossible to disassemble. His ferocious fighting force had been reduced to a simple distraction for his getaway.

Now, he searched their faces and considered the words he would choose to notify their loved ones of their demise. The bravery they had displayed. The hopes for their children to live in a Kurdish country of their own. His words would of course be manipulated into a verse that supported Kharrazi’s agenda. Kemel Kharrazi, the first dictator of a newly born Kurdish country. The father of all Kurds. The George Washington of his nation. A chance for immortality.

Kharrazi took it all in. He suppressed a telling grin and spoke to his men with great self-importance, “The President of the United States has scheduled a press conference to take place in less than an hour from now,” he proclaimed. He slowly covered the room with his eyes, making eye contact with as many soldiers as possible, men who would gladly take a bullet for him. They listened eagerly, with a glint of hope in their eyes. Kharrazi would not disappoint them. “It has been leaked to the news media that he will be announcing the withdrawal of troops from Turkey.”

The room exploded with cheers. The butts of machine guns pounded the floor with the rapid beat of anticipation. Kharrazi finally let loose a smile and joined in with his men who began chanting an old Kurdish victory song. Hands clapped to the rhythm of the chant while Kharrazi raised his glass in a celebratory gesture.

Kharrazi let the cheering continue for a few minutes, then held up his hand and watched the room become still. “We have some work left before we can go home and see our families again. We must remain vigilant. We must wait to hear the President address his country. Then we will know if the withdrawal is a fact. As I have told you, the Americans are willing to trade their souls for the safety of the White House.”

There was a sudden lull as the rotors of an approaching helicopter whumped overhead. Everyone stopped and stared at the ceiling as it breezed past the cabin at a rapid pace. When the sound of the rotors dissipated, they looked at Kharrazi.

A leader like Kharrazi would never appear concerned. Not now. Not when they were so close. “Heading toward town,” he said, unimpressed. “As usual, they are too late.”

The cheers sprang up and Kharrazi raised his glass once again. The climax was coming fast. Kharrazi was heading home and he strained to keep from laughing out loud.

A half mile from their target, the troops assembled in the forest for operational instructions. Included were a squad of Marines and a dozen field agents, all rushed up from Phoenix on Apache Helicopters. They’d arrived just in time to intimidate Angel Herrera into disclosing the KSF’s headquarters in record time. The man was ready to drive them there if necessary.

The Marines wore fatigues and shifted their weight anxiously, ready to run through walls, tear down buildings, and initiate a stockpile of terrorist corpses. Nick instructed the team commander that he needed a surgical approach to the attack. They couldn’t afford to go in loud and heavy. It might trigger an early detonation of the White House missiles and would defeat their purpose altogether.

Sergeant Hal McKenna was the Marines’ team commander. He was in his sixties and looked more like someone’s grandfather than team leader of an elite group of sharpshooters and soldiers. Until you got close enough to notice the scar. A six-inch gouge from the corner of his right eye to the middle of his jutted chin. One look and you immediately tendered respect. Nick could tell it was job related without asking. The knife must have been serrated. It devoured too much healthy tissue to allow a clean repair. Some poor surgeon must have worked desperately just to keep his face intact.

McKenna squatted low while the Marines and others gathered around him. The blueprint of the cabin was stretched out on a bed of pine needles that scratched at its underside. McKenna was at the middle of an inner circle, which spread into the murky wilderness behind them. The stand of trees where they gathered wasn’t very dense and it allowed for virtually everyone to get a clean look at him. A large streak of moonlight filtered between the canopies of pine trees and illuminated the opening where they assembled.

“Here,” McKenna said, pointing to a spot on the diagram. “This is where they’re most vulnerable.”

Nick nodded, half-listening to the briefing and half-studying the latest satellite images that McKenna had brought from Phoenix. Matt was beside him with a magnifying glass examining the same photos. They were taken a couple of hours earlier, right at dusk. Nick was steering a penlight across the images without really knowing what he was searching for. But something bothered him. Kharrazi was too sharp to allow himself to be cornered without an escape plan. Somewhere in the photos there was a clue. He just needed to recognize it.

McKenna was elbow to elbow with a Marine Sergeant and focused everyone’s attention to a specific target. “So we launch the 720 in this window and—”

“No,” Nick said.

Seven or eight heads turned toward Nick, including McKenna whose scar created a scowl on its own. “Excuse me?” McKenna said.

Nick opened his palms and tried the soft approach first. “The reason I directed you to formulate a plan was because of your hostage rescue skills. We need to be surgical. Quick and stealthy.”

McKenna’s face appeared to be fighting two or more emotions. “You have a hostage inside I don’t know about?”

“Yes, I do. The detonator. If we start a firefight, they could detonate the missiles early and make this entire mission a moot point.”