Cold Shot (20 page)

Jon depressed the cigarette lighter in the truck’s dash, waited for it to heat, pulled it out, and touched it to the cloth band around the grenade. It took a few seconds for the flame to ignite, black smoke rolling into the air. Jon pulled the pin out of the grenade, tossed the burning load into the Ford, then he threw Kyra the keys and ran behind her for the other truck. Kyra crawled into the driver’s seat, brought the Toyota to life and put the gas to the floor before Jon’s door was closed. The SUV crawled up the low embankment and the tires dug into the gravel, spinning out for a few seconds, then found traction and the truck jumped, speeding as the wheels clawed against the small rocks. Kyra cranked the wheel hard left when they reached the main road, rubber on asphalt, and the truck started picking up real speed.

Jon turned his head and looked back.

The cloth strip wrapped around the explosive in the Ford burned through and broke. The spoon on the thermite grenade released, allowing the aluminum powder inside to mix with the iron-oxide filler. The chemicals ignited, heat erupting inside the small can and racing to four thousand degrees in seconds. Molten iron began to spill out and the burning aluminum oxide flashed, brighter than a flare, lighting up the night for hundreds of feet in every direction. The burning compounds ignited the upholstery and began burning through the seats, the floor, and then the truck body below. It took twenty seconds for the fire to hit flammable fuels and a small explosion burst out from under the vehicle, scorching the brush beneath.

“Nice,” Kyra said, seeing the pyre burning in her rearview mirror.

“It’ll draw the search parties,” Jon told her. “If they don’t figure out in the next few minutes that we had a second truck, they’ll assume we’re still on foot. That’ll let us put some distance between us and them.”

“We can hope,” Kyra said. “Where are we going?”

Jon shook his head. Kyra sighed and let out a long breath. She pressed the gas, sped up, and drove along the dark road, heading east.

Puerto Cabello, Venezuela

They drove in the dark and silence for twenty kilometers until Kyra saw a cut in the woods that was lightly overgrown with brush. She pulled off onto the trail and found a string of decrepit concrete buildings a quarter mile off the road, shops abandoned by their owners, how long ago she couldn’t tell. The village was both too small and too far from Puerto Cabello to be properly called a suburb, but she could see the glow of that town’s lights above the trees, maybe ten kilometers distant and still bright enough to wash out the smaller stars above.

One of the cement shacks had a rusted garage door that Jon opened with difficulty and Kyra shuddered at the grinding sound as the door’s wheels ground against the metal tracks. She pulled the truck inside and killed the motor. Jon closed the door, easier this time with gravity’s help, and the quiet of the forest around them invaded the truck. There were no lights, no sounds of motors in pursuit.

“I think we’re clean,” Kyra offered.

“I think you’re right.” Jon ran his hands through his hair, then dropped his head back against the seat. “I guess I’ve slept in worse places.”

“Like either of us will be able to sleep after that,” Kyra said. She opened her door, stepped out, and reached for her pack in the truck bed.

“You’d be surprised. The body tends to collapse after intense stress is relieved.”

“I’m not there yet,” she told him. Her hands were shaking, whether from the stress or the adrenaline finally burning off, she didn’t know. “I got it, Jon. I was right. That building at the south end was a security shack. The video cameras connected to the base system there and I was able to tap the line and get video from the rest of the base. We’ve got to upload the file. It’s almost twenty gigabytes . . . almost filled up the iPad’s storage. It’s going to take a while to transmit.”

“I left your transceiver on the hill.”

Kyra stopped, then cursed. “You didn’t bring one?”

“Just a short range unit so I could talk to you. I was in a bit of a hurry going out the door. Can you get a cell signal out here?” he asked.

Kyra checked the iPad. “No.”

“We should keep our heads down tonight,” he suggested. “We can try to move into Puerto Cabello tomorrow . . . get close enough to get a call out.”

Kyra nodded, suddenly too tired to come up with another plan, much less argue with Jon’s. She leaned over. “Thanks for coming. Saved my tail.” And she kissed him on the cheek for the second time in three days.

“You got lucky,” Jon said.

“Better lucky than good any day.”

“Luck can’t outrun stupid forever,” he told her.

DAY SIX

CAVIM Explosives Factory

The truck was a smoking hulk, wisps of charred rubber and upholstery rising in the air like strings. The metal frame was still hot and the vegetation beneath was a black waste for several meters around. Even identifying the make and model would be difficult.

Elham stared at the burned wreckage and suppressed the frustration trying to rise in his chest. Emotion was not helpful at such moments, a lesson the SEBIN soldiers encircling the area clearly had not learned. Elham knew curses when he heard them in any language.

One of his own subordinates walked over, his Kaybhar rifle slung across his back, a cigarette hanging from his mouth smoked down almost to the nub. “What news?” Elham asked him.

“From what I can discern, there was a second vehicle here; we can tell that much from the tracks. But the trail disappears at the road. They went east but beyond that, we know nothing,” the soldier said.

“Where is Carreño?” Elham asked.

“The infirmary,” the soldier replied. “He encountered one of the spies in a small building at the southern end of the facility and received a fierce beating for his trouble. The rumor is that he was thrashed by a woman.”

Elham looked at the man, surprised. “A woman? Then he is more pathetic than I believed,” he announced.

“Indeed. These latinos talk forever of their manliness, but a woman puts one of them in the hospital? And we’re trusting
them
with the security around the operation?”

“That is not our decision to make,” Elham said, failing to keep the disgust out of his voice. “Why was the woman inside that particular building?”

“The SEBIN won’t tell us what the building is for, but our men scouted the area and one of them managed to look inside. It appears that it was a security access point. It is possible that the woman might have been able to access the facility computer network or the security feeds from there.”

Elham grunted. “She couldn’t penetrate the chemical plant, so she attacked a weaker point that let her see inside the building anyway?”

“It’s a possibility. We don’t know for sure. I doubt our hosts will tell us anything. They don’t want to admit their failures.”

“You’re surely right,” Elham agreed, then exhaled a long, slow breath. “This has the feel of a military operation. A spy infiltrates while another provides overwatch from the hill with a long rifle. And the floorboards of that truck are melted out, so it was burned with some kind of thermite grenade.”

“The SEBIN are convinced it was CIA or American Special Forces.”

“They might not be wrong,” Elham conceded. “But we cannot discount the Israelis. In either case, until we can prove otherwise, we must assume the worst case, that the woman has identified the cargo and its location. We have to find her and her companion.”

The soldier nodded in response. “They only have one truck now. They must be traveling together.”

“I agree,” Elham said. “These spies must be caught, but I don’t trust these SEBIN to execute that mission.” He looked around the forest and back up the hill. “Have a squad assemble near the southern fence by the ordnance field in two hours. I have to report to Ahmadi, and then I want to search the hills around the southern perimeter. Given the direction of the shots, the shooter must have been there.”

“Yes, sir.” The soldier walked off to fetch a radio from their own vehicle. Elham turned back to the smoking truck frame and studied the carnage.
This operation might be entirely compromised,
he thought. If the woman had accessed the network, she might already have transmitted the data to . . . who?
Who are you?
Elham thought. The frustration rose in his chest again, begging to run free. He dismissed it. Enough mistakes had been made and he could not count on these new opponents making any of their own.

CIA Director’s Conference Room

Drescher walked in, a stack of Styrofoam trays in hand, which he set on the table. “Breakfast, ladies and gentlemen, courtesy of the director’s chef. Poached eggs Erato with crab and hollandaise. Bagels and lox for the kosher among us. Either way, it beats a load of sugar bombs and coffee from the Dunkin’ Donuts in the cafeteria.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” one of the junior analysts muttered as he fought his way through the crowd to the table and took his tray.

“Gratitude, children, gratitude,” Drescher counseled. “I’ve been gone fifteen minutes. Somebody tell me something new?” The group muttered, mouths full of food, but it was apparent no one had anything to report. The senior watch officer frowned, scanned the group, and noticed one analyst in the far corner, disconnected from his surroundings. He was a young black man, business-casual dress, focused on his computer screen. Drescher wandered over and looked past his shoulder at the monitor.

“What’ve you got for me, Holland?”

The analyst looked up for a half second, then put his eyes back on the screen. “The records of all the companies that secured bonds to cover any IRISL cargo ships transiting to Venezuela in the last year.”

“And?” Drescher asked.

“I don’t know if it’s worth anything.”

“Show me,” Drescher ordered.

Holland pointed at the screen. Drescher leaned over and stared at the records, then squeezed the younger man’s shoulder. “For that, you get to miss breakfast. Come with me.”

CAVIM Explosives Factory

The SEBIN director’s phone sounded in his pants. He lowered one arm to retrieve the phone and the doctor wrapping the bandage around his torso was forced to stop for a moment until his patient lifted the phone to his ear.

“Carreño.” The SEBIN director sounded weak.

“This is Avila,” came the basso voice through the phone. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the medical building at the Morón facility.”

“You’ve seen the news?”

“I have,” Carreño admitted. To deny it would have been feckless.

“The Americans have penetrated the project,” Avila said. It was an admission of the obvious, meant not to educate his subordinate but to knife him in the ribs.

“I’m aware. I encountered an American spy last night inside the facility.” At least he assumed she had been American.

The phone went silent for several seconds. “And you captured this spy?”

“No,” Carreño told him, another admission that would have been equally feckless to dispute. “She caught me by surprise as I entered the south security hub—”

“She was inside the security hub?!”

The SEBIN director hung his head only because he knew the president couldn’t see the act of disgrace. The doctor finished wrapping his ribs and taped the bandages in place. “Yes. We attempted to detain her, but a sniper in the woods covered her escape. Our patrols executed a search but failed to find them. But their vehicle was burned.”

“So they’re on foot now?” Avila asked.

“No. We found a second set of tracks once the sun rose. We are searching a ten-kilometer radius.”

“And you’re sure she was American?”

“No,” Carreño admitted. “Some of the Iranians feel she might have been Israeli.”

He heard Avila let out an angry hiss. “Israeli? The Mossad? They are more vicious than the CIA, if such a thing is possible,” Avila sneered. “Fix
this,
Andrés. The Iranians will be nervous.”

Carreño was quite sure that
nervous
wasn’t the appropriate word. “We will deal—” he began, but the call disconnected before he got the second word out of his mouth.

Palacio de Miraflores

Caracas, Venezuela

Avila pushed the phone away from him on the ornate desk and slumped in his chair. Carreño was again proving to be a disappointment and the president wished again that the man didn’t have such close connections with the Castros. Venezuela had few partners and fewer patrons in the world and could spare none of them. The Cubans certainly would not sever their ties if he removed the SEBIN director, but they had other, more subtle ways of expressing their displeasure. And now that the American media had played that tape, all of Venezuela’s allies would be exercising caution—

Avila turned at the sound of frantic pounding behind him. He nodded at one of the security guards standing watch and the man opened the door. An aide hurried inside.

“Pardon my interruption, Señor Presidente—”

“What is it?” Avila snapped.

“The crowds,” the man said. “Some crowds have formed up—”

“I know,” Avila told him. “I
ordered
it. The Tupamaros—”

“No, sir.” The aide shook his head. “It’s not as you think, sir. These are not Tupamaros or any of the revolutionary militia.”

Avila gaped, walked to the window, and looked through the blinds. A small mob had formed outside the
palacio,
signs in hand. He couldn’t hear them but they were clearly yelling at the soldiers holding them away from the gates. “Who are they?”

“Civilians. Locals.” The worry in the aide’s voice was infectious. “And they’re not just here. We have reports from Maracaibo, Puerto Cabello, Ciudad Bolívar in the southeast, and several other port towns. They emerged after the American broadcast.”

“What are you saying?” Avila asked, perplexed.

“Sir . . . they are protesting
you.
”

Avila turned his head and looked at the bureaucrat, murder on his face. “How large are the mobs?”

“Not large yet,” the aide replied. “A few hundred in the larger towns.”

Avila nodded. “Contact the television stations. I want no coverage of this at all.
None.
There will be no ‘Arab Spring’ here . . . do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. But what about the foreign media? We cannot control them.”

“If you find anyone with a camera on the street, find a reason to arrest them. I don’t care, but smash the camera,” Avila ordered. “I don’t want these people organizing. And make sure the Tupamaros take their place at the American embassy. I want that nest of spies cordoned off. Contain
this.
”

“Yes, sir,” the aide said, not at all convincing, as he fled the room.

Embassy Suites Hotel

Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela

32 km south of Puerto Cabello

Hossein Ahmadi watched the television replay the warehouse video again. He’d lost count of the times the American news network had shown it. He thought his anger couldn’t rise any higher in his chest and found that he was wrong. Each viewing fed his rage until he could hardly control his hands every time the scene came on the television screen.

Someone rapped the door. “Come,” he said through clenched teeth. It could only be Elham. He’d summoned the
sargord,
who was the only soldier with standing permission to disturb him anyway.

Elham entered and closed the door behind him. “You’ve seen this?” Ahmadi said.

“Yes,” the
sargord
answered.

“How did the Americans film this?” Ahmadi knew the answer but his mind didn’t want to accept it.

“They had someone in the warehouse, obviously. Not twenty meters from where we stood,” Elham replied.

“How could you not see such a person?” Ahmadi demanded.

“The question applies to you as well,” he answered, turning the question back on the civilian.

“But you are in charge of security for this operation!” Ahmadi said.

“No, I am not,” Elham corrected him. “My men and I were not privy to any of this until we were pulled from our beds to retrieve your ship and ordered to bring it here, despite the fact that we are not sailors. You allowed the
Markarid
to be taken over by a pirate crew by refusing to assign an armed crew when she sailed. The Venezuelans took charge after the ship arrived and Carreño was in charge of protecting the dockyard and the ammunition factory. But the security on
your
operation has been poor from the start.”

“You cannot speak to me that way!”

“I can speak to you any way that I wish, provided that I am prepared to accept the consequences of my choices. And given that your poor choices are heaping consequences on me that I didn’t choose, I am quite prepared to tell you what I think.” He pointed at the television. “My face is in that video as well. Neither of us will escape this unscathed. We will both find ourselves answering unpleasant questions when we return to Tehran, but you more than me, I think.”

Ahmadi clenched his fists and his teeth, breathing hard. He needed a target for his rage and the
sargord
wasn’t providing a good one. He cursed in Farsi, then took his phone from the hotel room desk, set the speaker, and furiously dialed. The call rang numerous times before someone finally picked up.

“This is Avila,” the other man answered.

“Your man’s incompetence has endangered us,” Ahmadi said without preamble.

“We are dealing with it,” Avila said, defensive. “I will be making a statement later today—”

“This is going to take far more than a
statement
to correct!”

“Surely, but our dear
comandante,
God rest his soul, showed us how to deal with American spies. Trust me now, brother. Don’t fear this. God gives us opportunities from adversity. With this, we will finish the revolution that our leader began almost twenty years ago.”

I don’t care about your fool revolution!
Ahmadi raged silently. The Venezuelans were infidels, the same as the Americans. “Useful idiots,”
as Saddam had once phrased it. “We must move the cargo,” was what Ahmadi finally told him.

“I agree, but we cannot yet. The cargo has been opened, so we must finish the job there first and only then will it be safe to move, I’m told.”

“How long?” Ahmadi asked.

“Two days.”

“Get this done,” Ahmadi said. “Or my superiors in Tehran will have to reassess our alliance.” He turned off the phone.

Elham wondered whether Ahmadi truly had the influence to carry through on the threat.
Probably,
the soldier thought. The other man was a narcissist but he had no reputation back home for making idle threats.

National Security Adviser’s Office

West Wing, the White House

Washington, D.C.