All Necessary Force (29 page)

I keyed my radio. “Koko, house is clear. Bring in the girl.”

I figured the quickest way to get complete compliance was to have Maria show herself, proving we were friends. From there, we’d sort out the exfil without worrying about one of them making a break for it.

I turned to Retro. “Go get the two girls upstairs and the one in the kitchen.”

Decoy said, “What about the guy in the bedroom?”

“If he’s still out, leave him there.”

“And if he’s not?”

“Put him back to sleep.
Then
leave him there.” I keyed my radio. “Buckshot, get a gun out front. I don’t want any surprises.”

Minutes later, Retro came in with the woman from the kitchen. He cut off the flex ties on her hands and put her with the group. The girls showed her no outright sympathy, keeping their distance from her.

Decoy came over the net. “I’m going to need a hand up here. One girl’s going to need to be carried, and I don’t want to do that and watch the other one.”

“What’s wrong? Is she hurt?”

“No. At least not physically. But she’s pretty much catatonic.”

Retro said, “On the way.”

While waiting on them, I checked in with Jennifer.

“Maria’s good,” she said. “In fact, she can’t quit smiling. I’m moving to the house now in van one.”

“Roger that. Buckshot, when she’s in, go get van two. We need to clear out.”

“Roger.”

Decoy and Retro returned, Decoy carrying one girl while the other walked in front. Decoy laid the girl on the ground, brushed her hair out of her face, then backed up. The group went ballistic at the sight, circling around them, all talking at once. The one on the ground was awake and responding to the treatment of her friends, apparently starting to believe that she wasn’t about to die. The older woman from the kitchen hung at the back, trying to remain hidden.

Very different reaction from when she came in. Hmmm….

Jennifer appeared at the bottom of the stairs with Maria, and the scene repeated, with everyone talking at once. Our girl was practically jumping up and down trying to explain who we were and what we were doing here. The rest of the girls seemed unsure of whether to believe it, like at any minute the trick would be exposed and they’d be told to saddle up.

I had Jennifer break up the old-home week, getting Maria to point out the girl who was in the room with the Arab. After a little back-and-forth, she pointed to Miss Light Switch.

Should have known.

Right behind her was the woman from the kitchen. When Maria caught sight of her, she froze for a second. Then she plowed through the crowd, pushing bodies left and right like a fullback trying to reach the end zone.

That’s not good
. “Decoy, stop her!”

He was close, but not close enough. Maria leapt on the woman like an alley cat, clawing great gouges in the woman’s face as they fell to the floor. Before Decoy could reach her, the rest of the girls, seeing the attack and finally realizing they were no longer in any danger, lost all timidity and fell upon the woman as well, biting, clawing, and kicking. The outright savagery told me the woman would be dead in seconds.

It took all four of us to physically manhandle everyone off of her, and even that wasn’t working until I shouted at Jennifer to crack a round into the floor with the 416. The explosion finally got them to stop, all panting like hyenas fighting over a kill. We got them separated and left Buckshot pointing a weapon to keep them calm.

We pulled out of earshot, taking Maria with us. In short order, we learned that the woman, far from being a captive, was one of the most sadistic people in the house. Maria began relaying horror stories that caused me to tell Jennifer to shut her up.

“I get the picture.”

Decoy tossed his head at the cut-up woman. “Well, what about her? She’s heard us talk. She’ll know we’re Americans.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I’m not going to kill her in cold blood. No matter how much she deserves it.”

Retro said, “We don’t have to do anything. We could just walk up those stairs for a few minutes.”

“That would hurt the girls more than the woman. She’d just be dead, but they’d live with what they did forever.” I felt Jennifer’s eyes on me but didn’t acknowledge it. “I have a better idea.”

48

K

eshawn kept his mind off the meeting by sweeping the inside of the warehouse. For the fourth time. He told himself it was just because he didn’t like clutter, but deep down he knew it was because he was nervous. The tell was in the number of times he glanced at his watch, then glanced at the two Pelican cases at the back of the room.

What the fuck are you afraid of? You’ve walked with killers.

And yet he was. The man coming was someone who held a mythical place in his mind’s eye. A fighter that would destroy all the rich motherfuckers in this godforsaken country. Turn it into an Islamic utopia, where everyone was equal in the eyes of Allah. No more greed, no more haves and have-nots. Just a society based on Sharia law, where the glory was dedication to the one true God instead of material, worldly goods.

But what if he’s not?

What if all of this time and effort had been invested for some raghead loser? What if the promise wasn’t real? For the first time in his desolate, violent life, he had a purpose that transcended himself, and he was now afraid he’d find out it was a fantasy.

A soft knock snapped him out of his thoughts, the sound cracking open a fight-or-flight response as great as if he’d heard gunfire.

He placed the broom deliberately in the corner, took a breath, and strode to the door. Standing outside was a pudgy, balding man nervously glancing left and right. He was dressed like a street bum, his clothes stained and his oversize running shoes showing holes at the toes. He stank of whiskey and boiled eggs. Keshawn felt his heart fall. Then
felt a rage like never before, images of Beth’s struggle in the bathtub turning his vision red. He brought himself under control.

“Yes?”

The man wiped the sweat from his upper lip. “You get a FedEx package here yesterday?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“It’s my business because I know what’s in it. And if you don’t give me some money, I’m going to let the cops know.”

Keshawn was completely taken aback. This man wasn’t the fighter. He was something else entirely. He didn’t know how the man had knowledge of the delivery, but he did know one thing: The bum was a threat.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Keshawn said. “Cops? For what?”

The bum was sweating profusely now, fidgeting left and right. “Just give me a hundred bucks, and I’ll leave.”

Keshawn stood back from the door, his mind running through options, none of which he could execute on the front stoop. “Come inside. I have some money in here.”

“That’s okay. I’m not stupid. Bring the money to me out here.”

Keshawn looked left and right, seeing no one in the deserted industrial area. He reached back like he was pulling out a wallet, withdrawing a four-inch folding knife instead. He flicked out the blade and whipped it straight into the man’s abdomen, blade up, stabbing deep and ripping upward toward the heart. He clamped his other hand on the man’s jacket and held him upright while he continued to cut, finally hitting the bone of the rib cage. The man shrieked, his eyes bugging out of his head. Keshawn jerked him inside, the door slamming shut on its mechanical arm. He tossed the bum on the ground, watching him writhe around in a growing pool of blood, desperately attempting to staunch the flow. He knew the man was going to die in seconds.

He grabbed the bum’s hair to get him to focus. “Who told you about the shipment?”

The homeless man gargled, holding his hands to his stomach, his eyes rolling back in his head.

“Who, motherfucker, who?”

The man was unresponsive, either dead or unconscious. Keshawn kicked him, then kicked the wall.

“Fuck!”

He heard another knock from outside.
What the hell?
He quickly glanced at himself, seeing blood on his right hand up to the wrist. He thought about jumping out of the window at the back of the warehouse, but grabbed a shop rag instead. Wiping off the blood, he cracked the door a second time.

Standing on the other side was wiry man with a hawkish nose. His complexion was swarthy, but what caught Keshawn’s attention were his eyes. Black pools that reflected something dangerous. Perhaps something irrational as well. Just as he could smell a cop from across the street, Keshawn knew this man had been inside a prison. And not an easy one.

The fighter.

The man spoke calmly and lightly. “I’m Rafik. You must be Keshawn. May I come in?”

Keshawn said nothing, simply holding open the door, unsure of what he should do, his mind spinning. The simple question, given the killing he’d just done, seemed surreal.

Rafik walked inside and barely glanced at the eviscerated homeless man.

“You did well. I’m sorry for the deception, but I had to be sure of who you were.”

“You sent him to me? Why? Suppose I let him go?”

“I would have killed him. And then killed you.”

The confusion wearing off, Keshawn bristled, growing angry at being played like a child at a magic show. “Really? You think so? You ain’t in raghead land now.”

Rafik smiled, completely calm. “I asked for your forgiveness. I needed to be sure of your commitment. To be sure you wouldn’t run at the first hint of trouble. We are on a path that may require sacrifice. I had to be sure you were up to the task.”

Keshawn said, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m ready.”

Rafik narrowed his eyes and flicked his toe at the body on the floor. “This is nothing. I mean real sacrifice.”

Beth’s struggle in the bathtub flashed in Keshawn’s mind, her arms flailing around for leverage to raise her head, water splashing over the tub, the burst of bubbles as her involuntary response overcame her conscious attempt to stave off death, the tub growing cold as he held her limp body, one of her arms draped over the edge, the metronomic drips of water falling from a finger, getting farther and farther apart.

He felt Rafik’s eyes on him. “I know about sacrifice,” he said. “Believe me, I know.”

Rafik said nothing for a moment, then nodded. “The time is almost here. You had no trouble with the DHL shipment?”

Glad to talk about anything to rid him of the memories, Keshawn led him to the Pelican cases. “No issues whatsoever. I haven’t opened them, so I don’t know if anything was lost.”

“You didn’t open the cases?”

“Well, I didn’t know what was in them, so it made no sense to see if something was stolen.”

Pleased at the obedient response, Rafik opened both cases and smiled. “Nothing missing.”

Keshawn saw only metal plates and plastic buckets. “What the fuck is this?”

“You’ll find out with everyone else. You’ve done well with the warehouse. This is where we’ll build the method of destruction and train the men. One team at a time. Is the meeting set for Richmond?”

“Yeah. Carl’s got an apartment outside the airport. Everyone’s traveling down there now and should be there in a couple of days.”

Rafik clapped him on the shoulder. “Perfect. Let’s clean up this mess and continue our journey.”

The calmness of the conversation, considering the spreading pool of blood and the gutted body with its rictus grimace, sent a sliver of unease into Keshawn.
Maybe he’s not firing on all cylinders.

49

T

he room stank of stale designer coffee and fried rice. The conference table was littered with takeout cartons and Styrofoam cups, a large fruit bowl in the center holding the sad remnants of a bunch of grapes. Kurt supposed nobody wanted to be the one to eat the last bit of food.

He rested his head against the wall with his legs extended from his back-row seat behind the conference table, watching the members of the Oversight Council fidget while they waited on the arrival of the president. He had briefed them on the activities in Prague, filling in the holes from the information that had come out of the DOS and CIA’s own intelligence apparatus. The story on the street was of a large raid by the Prague police based on the intelligence of a woman “informant” on the inside of an Albanian sex-slave ring. Kurt had cracked open the truth.

As expected, the council had been incredulous. The team had completely overstepped their bounds, potentially causing an international crisis that could destroy American credibility during a time when the United States was trying to regain its footing in the world. Truth be told, Kurt half hoped they’d shut the whole project down. The pressure on him was enormous, affecting his ability to make decisions that were in the nation’s best interest. Calling his sleep fitful was being polite. His entire life had been dedicated to defending the constitution of the United States, and after 9/11 the Taskforce had seemed one more step on that road, but now things were spinning out of control.

An attack was coming, and the team was doing its best to combat it, but at what cost? When was enough truly enough? When would the
council say the rule of law outweighed the death that was coming? He despised Secretary of State Brookings, thinking the weasel cared only about his own career, but he understood the reticence.

If Pike’s actions in Prague became public knowledge, it would affect innumerable security arrangements on the European continent, which would inevitably trickle into trade negotiations and every other issue. Kurt understood that better than most, even while the council looked at him as a knuckle dragger. America no longer had the luxury of going it alone in the world. With globalization, everything was intertwined.

Then there was the domestic problem. If the Taskforce was exposed, nobody in the room had any illusions of how it would play out. Best case, the political apparatus would have a brief seizure, with a few weeks of twenty-four-hour talking heads frothing at the mouth and the usual rounds of congressional testimony before it faded from the national consciousness.