All Necessary Force (15 page)

She heard Pike ask the man his name, then heard the hose whipping into his flesh, her eyes involuntarily squeezing each time. Then the sound stopped. When it resumed, it was no longer the crack of the hose, but a dull, meaty drumbeat. She turned from the door and saw Pike straddling the chair, his fists a blur as he pummeled the man’s face.

Without conscious thought, she ran to him, grabbing his arms and pushing him away.

“Stop it! Stop it! You’re killing him!”

She registered that the man had fallen and was writhing on the ground, snaking his hands underneath his legs, then saw him spring to his feet and run to the pistol. Before she could warn Pike, he ripped out of her grip and flung her bodily into a wall, then raced to beat the man to the weapon.

Pike reached the table a split second after the Chinese, clamping his hands on the man’s wrists and forcing him to the ground. They writhed
on the ground for control of the pistol. She heard the pop of a suppressed round and waited to see who was hit.

Pike rose and stood over the body. Breathing hard, he turned and looked at her, his face twisted in rage.

She got her legs underneath her and did the only thing she could.

She fled.

24

T

he terror on Jennifer’s face devastated me, smothering the rage. I tried to talk but got nothing out before she ran. I turned back and looked at the man on the ground. He was no longer human. A body topped by a popped balloon of blood. I threw the pistol across the room in frustration.

What the fuck just happened?

I had lost control. Something that had never occurred on a mission. When I was operational, I was always—
always
—in control. It was what made me the top one percent of the top one percent in the world.

And I had just killed the only lead I had into the murder of my friend,
after
beating the shit out of him. Because I’d lost control.

Dammit, Jennifer
. If she hadn’t tackled me, he wouldn’t have gone for the gun.

I knew blaming her was bullshit. She’d done
exactly
what I would have if the situation had been reversed.
The right thing
.

For the first time since I had come back to the Taskforce, I questioned my ability to serve my country. Maybe my psyche was too damaged to do this work. Maybe I was now too sensitive to the price the job might entail.
Maybe you can’t separate the consequences from your emotions anymore.

Jennifer’s expression returned. The memory of her fear and revulsion sliced through me like a razor. She had literally run from me. Afraid that I’d hurt her.

I grabbed the man’s satchel and shoved everything in it, then ran out
to find her. To explain. Although I had nothing to defend what she’d seen. It was what it was.

Amazingly, the neighborhood was going about its normal business. I shoved everything but the passport into a Dumpster and started in the direction of our hotel.

As I walked, the one word the man said finally penetrated my brain.
Camera
. I had thought he’d just uttered nonsense, but now, with a clear head, I put together the utterance with his passport entries from Indonesia.
Jesus. Surely this has nothing to do with Kurt’s father.
I picked up my pace.

Entering our room, I startled Jennifer. I noticed her bag on the bed, with clothes in it. I immediately held up my hands.

“Hey… I… I don’t know what to say. I lost control.”

She looked at me warily, like she wanted me to give her a clear shot at the door.

“Pike, I’m going home. I don’t know what that was back there, but I want no part of it.”

The words drove a spike into me. “Jennifer, please. Don’t do this. That guy was bad. He was in Indonesia the same time we were, and was at the catacombs two minutes before the bus blew up. He had something to do with it.”

“I’m leaving.” She threw a shirt into her suitcase. “I’m not like you.”

She said nothing for a second, then continued, “I don’t want to be like you. I thought I did, but I don’t want to cross that line. Maybe it’s necessary. I don’t know. I just don’t want any part of it.”

“That wasn’t me. It wasn’t. I don’t like it either. Something happened. I… I would never hurt an innocent person. I would never hurt you.”

“You can’t say that. You might believe it, but you can’t say it. I saw you. You would have killed anyone, innocent or not.”

The unspoken accusation hammered me, that the man I had killed might not have done anything wrong. “You can’t believe that. The guy murdered Bull! I wasn’t going to kill him. Just make him talk. You’ve worked with the Taskforce enough. You know that’s not true.”

She stopped what she was doing, facing me head-on. “Bullshit! You’re all alike! I’m not sure who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy. Terrorists kill people, and the Taskforce reacts, running off killing people. Maybe you both just found an outlet for your psychopathic tendencies. They use God as an excuse to bomb, and you use them. Maybe there are no white hats.”

I couldn’t believe what she had just said. “Jesus. You can’t think that we’re like terrorists? We’ve never driven a plane into a building, for Christ’s sake. I’ve never enjoyed killing. We do what we do to protect people. Nothing more. If they’d quit, so would we. The opposite isn’t true. If we quit, they’ll just keep killing.”

She backed off a little. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what I believe, but I know I’m not cut out to be a part of it. I’m going home.”

I remembered the camera, and the possible connection with the bus strike. I couldn’t do what I needed to do on my own. I needed a team. And I could use Jennifer’s help to get one.

I knew that was just an excuse to keep her here, but I had to do something. She had seen something good in me a year ago, when I was drowning in the abyss, and I needed to prove she wasn’t wrong. I needed some time. Some space from what had happened to mend the rip between us.

And I really could use her help.

“Okay, okay. I won’t stop you, but I need you to do something first.”

“What?”

“The man mentioned a camera, and his passport showed him in Indonesia at the same time as us. Something’s going on here. The bus strike wasn’t random. I’m going back to that convention center to find out what. I need a team on the ground, and I need you to bring them in.”

“Bring them in? Why?”

“Because they’ll be falling from thirty thousand feet.”

25

R

afik kissed Kamil on both cheeks, saying, “
As-salamu alaikum.
” He shook the hands of the men with him, then touched his heart with his right hand.

“Good to see you,” Rafik said. “Any issues getting here?”

“None,” said Kamil. “But I’m anxious to hear why you called us to Cairo.”

Rafik told him what had happened in Alexandria, and the dilemma the plan now faced.

Kamil said, “So we need to convince these heathen pilots to continue with the plan despite the fact that their boss is dead?”

“Yes. They don’t know why they’re here, and will probably resist. Which is why I brought you. We need to make an early lesson.”

Kamil pulled out a seven-inch fillet knife. “I can do that. What’s your plan?”

Rafik pointed into the hotel. “The elevator’s right past the reception desk, but we’ll be taking the stairs on the other side. The head pilot’s in room 232. We take him, have him call the others, then hold a meeting. There’s a loadmaster and three pilots. We only need one.”

Fifteen minutes later, Rafik addressed the Indonesians, holding a thick plastic trash bag, the other three Arabs flanking the group left and right.

“Noordin was paying you to fly a certain cargo from Alexandria to
Prague, then onward to another country. He is no longer here, but I am the one who hired him. I wish you to continue.”

The lead pilot answered, “We worked for Noordin, it’s true, but we’re not any more. We have another job. We’re leaving tomorrow. Sorry.”

The loadmaster seemed to shrink into one of the other pilots, like a small child. The pilot put his arm around him, rubbing his back. Rafik was disgusted to realize they were partners, and decided the loadmaster would be the lesson. Then he grasped that the connection could be useful later.

He said, “I’m not going to threaten or beg. I’m going to show you what will happen if you say no. I only need one pilot.”

Rafik turned to Kamil and said, “The one who spoke.”

Initially the Indonesians looked confused. When the Arabs pulled out pistols, they showed their first signs of alarm. But by then, it was too late, their conscious minds failing to sense the extent of the danger. As had happened throughout history, whether facing a mugger in New York City or being pushed toward a shower by a Nazi guard, they acquiesced without a struggle. Kamil grabbed the lead pilot and forced him to his knees. He shoved the man’s head into the trash bag and pulled out the fillet knife. The pilot, unable to see anything, remained still. Kamil placed the knife under his neck and began to saw.

The blade bit deep. Before the pilot comprehended the danger, he was already dead. His body just didn’t realize it. He began flopping around like a fish on a dock, but Kamil held him down and stroked three more times. Kamil dropped the body and stood up, watching it continue to whip, causing a spackle of red to spray out, as if someone had stomped on a ketchup packet. The sounds coming from inside the bag made the other Indonesians flinch in horror. First a wet wheeze, it grew into a gurgling rattle as the pilot’s lungs fought for air through the torrent of blood. In seconds, the body was still, the only sign of life a twitching left foot.

“Now,” Rafik said, “do I need to repeat this?”

The loadmaster turned his head away and buried it in the pilot’s chest. The pilot said, “No. I’ll fly you. Please don’t hurt anyone else.”

“Okay. Then everyone calm down. Harm will only come to you if you fail to accomplish this mission. What did Noordin tell you about the plan?”

“Nothing. Only that we were flying a plane.”

“That’s true, from Alexandria to your usual spot in Prague. As just another flight from Noordin’s company.”

The pilot said, “That won’t work. All planes have tail numbers that show where they’re from and who owns them. We can’t fly another plane as if it’s ours.”

“You’re going to repaint the number to one that Noordin owns. Then just fly it home.”

“What type of plane?”

“A DHC-6 Twin Otter, registered in America.”

“We don’t
have
any Twin Otters. All our aircraft are built by Indonesian Aerospace. This won’t work.”

Rafik grew abrupt. “Nobody’s going to match the tail number with the model. It’s just one flight. Once it’s on the ground, you can have the Twin Otter. I only want what’s inside. You can either do it and risk jail, or remain here. I have more trash bags.”

When the pilot said nothing, Rafik continued, “Transfer the boxes inside the Otter to a real Noordin plane, then wait for us.”

He saw the pilot’s face reflect a glimmer of hope. “You won’t be with us?”

“No. Two Noordin employees flying a Noordin plane won’t cause a commotion, but us on board will raise questions with customs that might create trouble.”

“You mean three? Three Noordin employees will be flying?”

“I mean three unless you keep questioning me. We’ll fly out of Cairo and meet you in Prague. Do you understand what you need to do?”

“Yes.”

Rafik took the knife from Kamil and held it up, the blood and bits of flesh still clinging to it.

“You had better be at the airport in Prague when we arrive. You make me hunt you down and I’ll cut off your head only after I’ve worked my way up from the bottom.”

26

I

computed the time change between Cairo and D.C., and decided I’d waited long enough.

Kurt would be in the office by now, and I wasn’t getting anything at the convention center. I’d cased Noordin’s booth for close to three hours and gleaned nothing. Maybe nothing was going on. Maybe Noordin was doing whatever he was doing all by himself.

The booth itself—in fact, the whole convention—was moving slow, like Vegas at nine in the morning. It stood to reason, since the terrorist strike had killed Noordin and seventeen other participants.

I pulled up our VPN on the company Web site. Once I was secure, I instant-messaged my “secretary” in the rear—really just someone who was pulling radio watch in the Taskforce headquarters. When he came on, I asked him to find Kurt, then put on the headset and waited.

It had taken a little doing, but Kurt had finally agreed to send over some more operators. The connection with the terrorist strike and his father’s camera had been weak, but it was enough. Everyone in D.C. seemed to be shitting their pants over the intel indicators, and ultimately it had swayed Kurt’s decision. He wouldn’t give me a complete team, but he did agree to send over the rest of Knuckles’ men. That was fine by me, since they used to be my team.

While none of the men were documented in my company, the primary problem was that we needed equipment—and bringing it in through customs wasn’t the best idea. Eventually, we’d have the ability to do that with company infrastructure, but our problem was now.

I’d pulled the trigger on an in-extremis option that the Taskforce had
never used—a high-altitude, low-opening parachute jump. The team, with one man attached to a tandem bundle that held the equipment, would exit an airplane flying at commercial altitude on an existing air route. The plane, ostensibly flying a humanitarian mission to Sudan, would appear to be just transiting Egyptian airspace.

Kurt had balked at first, because it
was
fraught with risk, but I finally shamed him by asking why the hell we did all the practice jumps if we never intended to use the method. It was designed for just this type of contingency. He’d agreed, provided I gave him an update prior to the team launching from Europe on the final leg of the flight, which was why I was calling now.