Blown (22 page)

I
t felt
a lot like the training simulator in Chicago except this time it was real life. Now Moss faced a decision much like that from the simulator. His new partner left the protection of the gantry crane in order to capture the assassin known as Valkyrie. The woman Moss had spent so much time with in the Crown Vic traveling the back roads of Arkansas was, in reality, hired to kill the man he had teamed up with now. It was a strange and ironic twist of fate. Kaplan turned out to be the good guy and she turned out to be the villain.

Villainess.

But Moss was a Deputy U. S. Marshal and she posed a threat to Kaplan's life. He knew Kaplan wanted her alive long enough to find out who had paid her to kill him. Then he would kill her. Moss wanted her alive, but if it came down to choosing lives, hers was expendable.

She hadn't seen him approach the loading dock and was so fixated on killing her target that he was able to walk almost to the edge of the water. The clandestine operative and the assassin exchanged gunfire allowing Moss to take aim at the assassin. When she got the drop on Kaplan, Moss took the shot.

K
aplan had
many troubling thoughts as he watched Valkyrie fall toward the water. First and foremost, he needed to get to her before she escaped if he stood any chance of finding out who put the contract on him. If it was even him she was after. Even though Moss was convinced otherwise, Kaplan still had doubts and wondered if perhaps Tony might have been the intended target all along.

Then there was the falling container. If he waited for it to hit the water and the resulting wake to disperse, he would lose valuable time and distance getting to the woman. Moss had shot her, but how badly was she hurt? Could she swim? Was she still conscious? She clutched at her shoulder after the shot rang out and then the container fell.

He decided he couldn't wait for the wake to settle, the cost in time and distance was too great. He secured his weapon and readied himself to dive from the loading dock into the dark water.

The container splashed into the water, stopped, then settled and seemed to rise back to the surface before slowly slipping out of sight. Beyond where the container hit the water, he saw Valkyrie bob up and down in the wake. There was something else in the water and she was trying to swim toward it with one arm.

The wake was higher than he originally expected. As it reached the bulkhead, Kaplan dove over and past the main surge. Then the wake struck the bulkhead at the loading dock and reversed direction, which gave him a short-lived burst of speed through the water as he used the wake to his advantage.

He closed the gap as Valkyrie struggled to swim toward the object floating in the water. The wake had pushed it farther away from Valkyrie. Her determination to reach the floating object seemed undeterred as Kaplan closed in. His strong arms and legs gave him the advantage and he was certain he could catch the assassin.

But, he didn't.

She reached the object floating in the water when he was still ten feet away. She struggled with the object one handed, unable to use one arm, thanks to Moss. She finally flipped it over exposing two handgrips. Kaplan heard the whine of the electric motor and saw a shielded propeller starting to spin. It was a personal water propulsion device, a sea scooter much less powerful than the ones he'd used on some Special Forces missions. Smaller too.

It was cylindrical in shape with a pointed nose cone to reduce friction through the water. Roughly two feet long and eight inches in diameter, the plastic shell held an electric motor with enough power to pull Valkyrie through the water faster than he could swim. If she pulled away from him now, he'd never catch her.

With adrenaline pumping, he kicked and lunged forward in the water extending his strong right arm. As the device started to move Valkyrie through the water, he grasped one of her ankles. If he lost his grip now, she would escape. He felt the pull from the sea scooter dragging them both through the water.

She kicked her leg to free his grip and with her other foot jammed her boot into his wrist. He tightened his grip and refused to let go. He couldn't let go. If he did, she would be gone. He snagged her other foot with his free hand and pulled himself toward her with all his strength.

The combination of him pulling on her feet and the thrust from the sea scooter were too much for the injured Valkyrie. The scooter struggled to accelerate with their combined weight and within seconds Valkyrie lost her grip and the sea scooter floated away.

Valkyrie turned and tried to knee him in the groin but she hit the side of his leg instead. He balled a fist and struck her in the ribs. She groaned and slashed at him with an open hand. Her claws hit his face and he felt his skin tear under her fingernails. The instant burning sensation left no uncertainty that she had drawn blood.

He pushed her hand away and threw a southpaw hook to her jaw. He heard the crunch and felt her jawbone give under the impact. Her head went limp. He spun her around and pulled her to him. He wrapped one arm around her waist and used the other to collar her around the throat from behind.

"It's over," he said.

She elbowed him in the gut. "Let me go," she cried out.

He cinched his grip tighter around her neck. "Who's your target?"

"Go to hell."

Her hand disappeared beneath the water and then reappeared wielding a knife. Not just a knife, a poniard, a tiny dagger. Unable to fend off her knife attack in time, she plunged the small blade into his forearm. His grip loosened and she pushed herself free and moved toward the sea scooter.

He grabbed the poniard and pulled the blade from his forearm muscle. Hot intense pain shot through his arm. He had been in knife fights in the past. Too many to count. A stab in a muscle, though, was much better than having the muscle severed by a slashing blade.

He fought off the pain, tossed the poniard into the water, and lunged toward the escaping assassin, snagging a handful of red hair. He yanked her head backwards, spun her around, and slammed his fist into her face.

She pulled her arm back, made a fist, and swung at his face. He blocked the assault, clamped his hand on her head, and pushed her underwater.

And held her there.

He counted the seconds. She squirmed and kicked. After a full minute, he pulled her head out of the water. "Who's your target?"

"Screw you, asshole."

Without allowing her to take a breath he shoved her head back under. She writhed and grappled until her energy seemed to wane. He had water-boarded prisoners before but all of those were Middle Eastern men, most beaten before being tortured. He wasn't going to torture Valkyrie, but he needed answers so he kept her submerged long enough to let her panic.

He yanked her head out of the water. The Hudson around the shipyards had a foul smell and her hair felt slimy. She coughed and spit and coughed again.

"Who's your target?"

Nothing.

"Who. Is. Your. Target?"

Refusing to answer, he started to push her under again when she cried out, "All right. All right."

"Target? Tony?"

"No." She coughed and vomited into the river. "You," she said. "You are my target."

Moss was right. "Who hired you?"

"I don't know," she said. "I never met him."

"Give me his name."

"I don't know his name," she replied.

He shoved the weakened woman underwater again, counted to thirty, and then pulled her head out of the water by her hair. "Give me a name now or the next time I pull you out of the water you'll be dead."

"A code name," she said. She was gagging and spitting river water. "That's all I know. A code name."

"I'm listening."

"Shepherd."

"What?" He was taken by surprise.

"He called himself Shepherd."

"I'll be damned," he muttered to himself. "Çoban."

He started pulling Valkyrie back toward the loading dock.

"Shepherd," she said. "What does that mean?"

"Two things,” he said. “First, you get to live. And second, it means I'm going back to Lebanon."

T
wo CIA assets
were standing next to Moss when Kaplan reached the loading dock with the injured Valkyrie in tow. They pulled her from the water and field dressed her gunshot wound. She had lost a lot of blood in her struggle with Kaplan so he decided to send her with the two operatives to a secure CIA site in Manhattan that also housed an agency run trauma medical unit.

According to Valkyrie, Shepherd got his information about Kaplan from a paid informant at the agency. Not only did the United States Marshals Service have a leak, so did the CIA.

Identifying the mole at the CIA could prove a challenge. Whoever was on the payroll of the Hezbollah Sheik had covered his tracks well…or her tracks. Kaplan knew the CIA's own secret version of Internal Affairs would soon be hard at work digging and prying into anyone who might have had access to Kaplan's movements. In a sense, its tactics resembled the infamous Nutting Squads of the Irish Republican Army more than it did Internal Affairs. The Nutting Squad was known for putting bullets, or
nuts
as they were called in Belfast, in people's heads if suspected of passing information.

Of course, the agency had its own
official
Internal Affairs, but that group wouldn't be involved in ferreting out this mole. There would be nothing
official
about this investigation. Nothing legal about the secret team's methods and procedures for getting to the truth either, although the end result was often the same as the Nutting Squad—death.

No one in the agency would be safe from the exhaustive approach. And the first one under the microscope would be the man who knew the most about Kaplan's movements, his handler.

Kaplan and Moss started the long walk back to the burning warehouse while the two assets hauled Valkyrie away. Kaplan's clothes were soaked. While Kaplan was still in the water, Moss had removed the belt from his leg and allowed one of the assets, the same one who treated Valkyrie, to clean and apply
QuikClot
to his wound. After applying a clean dressing, he secured it by wrapping duct tape around the deputy's calf. Moss barely showed any signs of a limp as he walked next to Kaplan.

"I thought you said she was a sanctioned kill," said Moss.

"I did."

"Then why is she still alive?"

"Something changed."

"While you were in the water?"

Kaplan turned and looked at the taller deputy. "Yes."

"Well? What changed?"

"She told me I was the target."

"And
that
changed your mind? Hell, I already told you that you were her target."

"That wasn't the only thing. It was
who
hired her to kill me that changed my mind. And the agency will want to interrogate her about him."

"Okay, the suspense is killing me," Moss said. "Who hired her to kill you?"

"Valkyrie called him Shepherd. He calls himself Çoban, which literally means shepherd. His real name is Hakim Omar Khalil."

"As in the terrorist Hezbollah Sheik Khalil?" Moss queried. "The same Sheik in the news lately?"

"One and the same."

"What the hell did you do to piss him off?"

"I killed his cousin a few months ago."

"That might do it." Moss smiled. "What did his cousin do to make the CIA want him dead?"

"I don't know if you knew this or not since it didn't get a lot of fanfare in the media, but last summer a suicide bomber blew up a café in Damascus killing twenty-six people at a wedding reception. Bride and groom killed along with the entire wedding party, several of whom were U. S. citizens. The Sheik's cousin orchestrated and ordered the bombing."

"How did Khalil know it was you who killed his cousin?"

"Damn good question." Kaplan turned and looked Moss in the eyes. "And I intend on finding the answer."

Once out of the Hudson River, Kaplan had field dressed the wound to his arm inflicted by the slender blade of Valkyrie's poniard in the same manner as the asset treated Moss. Clean,
QuickClot
, dressing, duct tape.

When they reached the warehouse, the blaze was almost under control. Firefighters were unable to control the massive inferno fueled by so many barrels of combustible material and were forced to let it burn down. All that remained of the warehouse structure were the metal girders, which glowed red from the intense heat of the conflagration. There were two-dozen people gathered around where Sturdivant was lying dead in a pool of blood along with the accompanying ambulances, law enforcement and rescue vehicles.

A man stepped forward to intercept Kaplan and Moss as they approached. He held up his credentials and identified himself as FBI Regional Director Mark Bruder. He demanded their identification and when they reached for their creds, several FBI special agents drew their weapons. After Bruder reviewed the credentials, he motioned for his men to lower their weapons.

"Where is my witness?" Moss demanded.

"First I want to know who killed my men," Bruder said as he pointed toward the bodies.

"Your men," said Kaplan, "were already dead when we went after the shooter."

Moss stepped in front of Bruder. "Where. Is. My. Witness?"

"The old man?" Bruder pointed. "He's over there, with my men."

"Have your men bring him to me."

"Who is he?"

"You know I can't reveal that," Moss said. "Besides, I think you already know his identity."

"You better come up with an explanation pretty quick because I have a dead assistant regional director, a dead agent, a burned down warehouse with five crispy critters inside and two on the outside." He pointed to the spot where Kaplan left the first two guards. "To top it off, the man this raid was supposed to nab is nowhere to be found. I got nothing to show for it."

"Sure you do," Kaplan interrupted. "Martin Scalini is dead. Moss and I personally watched Bruno Ratti put a bullet in his head. Pull the dental records. You'll see he's one of your crispy critters. And if there had been even so much as an inkling of inter-agency communication, then this whole mess could have been avoided."

The regional director did not seem to appreciate Kaplan's attitude. Kaplan didn't care. It had been a long three days. Tony was alive and in custody, Bruno was missing, and this dipshit from the FBI was about to read them the riot act. Kaplan stepped back and let Moss take a turn with the man. The discussion would heat up, with threats from the director about hauling them in for questioning followed by more threats of interfering with a federal investigation. After a few minutes, it was nothing more than background noise droning in his ears.

He was done.

Done with Tony.

Done with trying to fulfill his promise to the dead Deputy Mike Cox. If the CIA rat squad ruled out his handler as the mole, then Kaplan would be free to locate the elusive Çoban and eliminate him once and for all.

Of course, he knew he couldn't do it, just forsake his word to Inspector Mike Cox. His word to a fellow Delta Force soldier—
Once in, Never out.
Deep down, he knew he'd finish the job. His word was his bond. And whether Moss or the U.S. Marshals Service liked it or not, he was going to see Tony delivered to the SSOC.

After fifteen minutes, most of which was spent shouting, Moss and Bruder parted ways. Moss walked over to Kaplan. "Let's get Tony and get the hell out of here," the deputy grumbled.