Game of Drones (27 page)

Zawahiri examined the card further, confused as to its content, then looked into the front cab. Attached to the dashboard was a puck-like device with a blinking red light. As the red light blinked faster, and then held steady with an angry red glare, Zawahiri knew that it was too late.

The moment he tried the handle of his door, the car exploded, the top half shearing completely off the vehicle’s body and somersaulting through the air until it landed some twenty feet away. Flames as high as twenty feet continued to burn, eventually causing the fuel tank to add to its devastation with a second blast that caused the car to flip.

The chauffer, without looking back, got into a waiting car hidden behind a rocky rise. He sat there and peeled away his fake beard. The driver, a CIA agent, put the car in gear and headed back to Rawalpindi.

On the way there, Stephen Shah could not take his eyes off the side mirror as he watched the black smoke from the wreckage climb toward a beautiful blue sky.

Three Weeks Later

After Chancellor Zanetti's burial at the Oak Grove Cemetery—his casket surrounded by capes of roses, flowering wreaths, and a portrait-sized photo of a smiling Chance with a sparkle in his eyes and glittering white teeth—things slowly got back to normal, even with the weight of heavy hearts.

Dante Alvarez and Liam Reilly bonded, the two men sharing drinks and spirits at a local pub, a favorite of Dante's, where they drank to the memory of Chance, and toasted their new-found friendship and mutual admiration.

Danielle Sunderland continued to wear her loudly colored clothing while she surfed the web for the son she lost so many years ago when her then-husband absconded with him in a custody dispute.

Stephen Shah eventually found time alone to go fly fishing, wearing his waders and boonie cap with the fly-fishing hooks attached. The scenery was beautiful, the rapids mild, and the fishing terrible. But the moment, at least to Shah, was blissful.

Naomi Washington, however, was having a difficult time finding her way out of an emotional thicket. She lay in a bed that was now too large for her, holding a photo of Chance, often weeping and sobbing. Whereas everyone in OUTCAST had moved on as best they could, Nay continued to mourn deeply, feeling far apart from her team. When Chance was alive he made her feel whole and vibrant. Now that he was gone, she felt incomplete. But in time—as time heals all things--the feelings of emptiness would eventually diminish, the pain slowly subsiding. But neither would it dissolve completely.

Tanner Wilson sat alone at his desk in the OUTCAST facility, reminiscing on Chance and the wonderful moments they shared together, the memories often bringing a smile to his face while his eyes stared dreamily in thought.

The moment the phone rang, however, the images summarily faded. He picked up the receiver. “Tanner.”

“How’s it hanging?”
It was FBI Director John Casey.

“It’s hanging. How are you, you old goat?”

Casey chuckled from his end.
“This old goat is doing all right,”
he told him.
“I just wanted to call and tell you that I resigned my post as FBI Director.”

“It’s about time,” said Tanner. “Now you can go fishing with Shah.”

“Nah. Fishing’s not my thing. Actually, I’ve been assigned a new post by the president. I’ll be serving as a handler for operatives and heading up covert missions.”

“CIA? NSA?”

“Neither,”
he said. “
The president has assigned me to manage any situations that may serve to imperil national security. If anything like this drone thing ever happens again, he vows to be better prepared. And to do this, I'm able to use whatever force is necessary to achieve the means. No questions asked.”

"
And your go-to team?”

“Whomever I choose.”

“So you’re calling me to what—see if OUTCAST is available?”

“Tanner, what you and OUTCAST did at the bunker--what Chance did to save a good portion of the eastern seaboard..."
He paused as if unable to summon words to express his gratitude, then continued.
"President Carmichael agrees with me that you and your team would be prime candidates to help protect the sovereignty of this nation in these kinds of situations."

“We work independently,” Tanner told him.

“I understand that. I would simply be your handler and provide you with missions. But in the end it’s your team and your decision. And should you accept a mission, then you would take complete command and use whatever means necessary to achieve the objectives.”

“No government intervention?”

“Other than them informing me what needs to be done, none whatsoever. But the caveat to that is that if you or anyone on your team gets caught or captured, then the government will disavow any knowledge of your existence.”

There was a short pause over the line before Casey started up again, this time sounding low-key.
“These are different times, Tanner, with spies and terrorists camping out in our front yard, technology leapfrogging at a dizzying pace. And many of us aren't even aware of it, as Shazad proved. So we need people like you and OUTCAST to level the playing field.”

“As long as my team and I stay off the federal payroll, and if you serve as our handler, then the terms are acceptable. We work as consultants. We choose our missions, decide which meets our needs, and I dictate how that mission should be run.”

“Agreed.”

And just like that, a new alliance was born.

#

Mexico City, Mexico

Aasif Shazad was sitting at an outside eatery in Mexico City, sipping on a lime
Jarritos
soda. The city was filthy, the air thick and cloying with smog that held a green hue to it. But he was a free man waiting to serve Allah once again.

He had worked his way west with little difficulty and then crossed over into Mexico from Arizona, no easy task given that he was one of the most wanted people in the world and had one of the most recognizable faces on the planet after having his photo shown over every major network. But like his teammates, he was presumed dead.

Assumption,
he thought,
another mistake on the part of the Americans.

Shazad sipped slowly at his drink and took in his surroundings. Eventually he would work further south, to a country in South America, and then catch a flight back to the Middle East. From there he would orchestrate more plans, more tactics, more missions, with the United States in his crosshairs.

Yes,
he thought,
I’ve so much more to do.

He smiled.

So much more.

Read an Excerpt from the Bestselling Author of Outcast Ops series:

OUTCAST Ops: African Firestorm (OUTCAST Book 3)

Synopsis:
When pirates hijack a container ship off the coast of Somalia, a sinister plan to cripple the U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf and precipitate a war is unleashed. Two North Korean nuclear warheads being smuggled to Iran are the centerpiece of an ISIS plot to distract the world's attention. If they succeed, thousands of people will die in nuclear fire and the world will be at war.

Enter OUTCAST (Operational Undertaking To Counteract Active Stateside Threats)--six ex-operatives from six of America’s most powerful organizations. Each has been unceremoniously released by their respective former employer for alleged misdoings that leave their pride wounded but their essential skill-sets untouched. After uniting over their shared bond of dismissal from the nation’s most elite outfits, the disgruntled spooks realize that they can work together like never before to take down threats to their beloved country, a country that branded them as outcasts but needs them now more than ever.

As a quiet investigation in South Africa suddenly goes hot, leading to a Somalian pirate base and a night-time assault on the high seas, OUTCAST is hell-bent on showing America that their way isn't the best way--it's the only way.

Read an Excerpt from the Bestselling Author of The Vatican Knights series:

The Vatican Knights

Synopsis:
While on a visit to the United States, Pope Pius XIII is kidnapped by a terrorist cell calling itself the Soldiers of Islam. If the United States and its allies do not meet their demands, they will execute the pope. So when FBI Specialist Shari Cohen is called to duty to track down the terrorist cell responsible, she learns that she is not alone. Deep behind the Vatican walls a secret order dispatches a clandestine op group of elite commandos known as the Vatican Knights. Their mission: bring the pope back alive. As Cohen and the Knights work in tandem they uncover a White House conspiracy involving high-ranking members on Capitol Hill. When she begins to get too close to the truth about the pope’s kidnapping, she becomes the target of indigenous forces trying to keep the conspiracy safe. However, in order to get to her they must go through the Vatican Knights.

PROLOGUE

Washington, D.C.
Fifteen Years Ago

When Shari Cohen’s grandmother was confined to Auschwitz, the sky always rained ashes.

At the peak of the camp’s existence, 20,000 Jews were summarily executed on a daily basis and burned in the ovens, a tragedy that was memorialized by the photos lining the walls, galleries and glass cases of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

People milled noiselessly about, zigzagging across the hall from one display case to another, regaled by Iron Crosses and German Lugers. Beneath recessed lighting hung German and Hebrew banners, as well as framed paintings that the Nazi regime had appropriated from Jewish owners.

At the end of a corridor, Shari walked along a memorial wall lined with numerous black-and-white photos, studying each one carefully.

And then she found it, a grainy black-and-white print of detainees standing together wearing garments draped over limbs no larger than broomsticks. The despair on their faces was obvious, the wallow-eyed sadness speaking volumes.

With the tips of her fingers Shari traced the image of a young woman who stood with her chin raised in defiance. The points of her shoulders, her cheeks, the paleness of her flesh and the death rings surrounding her eyes all bore testament to her will and courage in the face of adversity. It was the photo of Shari’s grandmother.

Immediately she felt the sting of tears, her grief and pity mixed with overwhelming pride.

She moved slowly along the cases, examining every photo and imagining the atrocities behind them. In one picture she noted lifeless bodies hanging from the gallows. Shari remembered her grandmother saying that the bodies would swing there for days, as a reminder to Jews within the camp of their impending fate.

To be a person of Jewish faith, her grandmother told her, was a fate that assured death and never a reprieve.

Even at this moment, within her mind, Shari could hear the slight accent of her grandmother’s voice, the sweet clip of her tone. The way she spoke, with the courage and pride of making it through one of the blackest moments of history, was in itself a demonstration of the old woman’s fortitude.

When Shari was too young to understand the palpability of her grandmother’s suffering, but on the cusp of learning, her grandmother showed her the stenciled numerals on her left forearm. Viewing the numbers from one side read 100681, but when the forearm was viewed from the opposite side, the numbers became inverted, reading 189001. Same tattoo but different numbers. Her grandmother always referred to these as the magic numbers.

Shari smiled. In her mind’s eye she could see her grandmother smiling back, amused at the astonishment on Shari’s young face as the numbers changed before her eyes.

And then Shari’s smile faded, the corners of her lips withering into a straight line. The woman who was so brave and cavalier about her struggles in Auschwitz died of heart failure a week ago in a D.C. hospital, at the age of seventy-nine. Shari missed her deeply.