Authors: Jason Elam
Zahir grabbed the offender and roughly pulled him away. “Get your hands off him! What is the matter with you? I have a good
mind to beat you in the street like the dog you are!”
The crowd had opened up, and Zahir was violently pushing the man when al-’Aqran called out, “Leave him alone, Babrak. He’s
. . .” There was something about the stranger that made the old man pause—a familiarity that seemed to shout from the deep
recesses of his mind, though not loudly enough to be clearly heard. “He’s apologized. Go in peace, friend.”
Al-’Aqran watched as the man hurried off, disappearing into the mass of people that seemed to swallow him up. “Babrak,” he
said to the young man, “I have something I’d like you to do.”
The tension was almost unbearable as Scott listened to the action on his earpiece. His leg was bouncing so violently from
nervous energy that the whole car began squeaking. Scott closed his eyes when the contact was made—Johnson repeating “
Özür
dilerim,
özür
dilerim
”— the Turkish words for “I’m sorry”—over and over. The sound of the confrontation filled Scott’s head, and he visualized
the action. An Arabic voice began shouting at Johnson: “hands off . . . beat you . . . like the dog you are.” Scott’s Arabic
wasn’t good enough to accurately follow along. Then al-’Aqran spoke—there was no mistaking whose voice that was.
Finally, it was done. Scott began to relax.
Thirty seconds later, Johnson said, “Velvet One, Velvet Eight.
The dot is planted. I’m just doubling around to my car, then I’ll—
oomph
!”
Scott’s eyes opened wide as the sound of a scuffle assaulted his ear. But as he listened, it began sounding less and less
like a scuffle and more like a beating—and Johnson was definitely getting the bad end of it.
A voice sounded in the earpiece. Scott recognized it as the same one that had been screaming at Johnson earlier. At first
the man yelled in Arabic, then Turkish, then, finally, heavily accented English, “Who are you?”
Johnson kept saying, “
Özür
dilerim,
özür
dilerim!
” But the words sounded slurred now.
“Tell me who you are! Tell me!”
There was pleading now in Johnson’s voice. “
Özür
dilerim,
özür—
”
The words were cut off by the other man growling something in Arabic. Johnson cried out; then Scott heard a sound that chilled
him to the bone and would return to him every night for the next six months as he closed his eyes to sleep—a low, wet gurgling
that lasted for about forty-five seconds. After that, there was only silence.
FRIDAY, MAY 29, 10:14 A.M. MDT FRONT RANGE RESPONSE TEAM HEADQUARTERS DENVER, COLORADO
“Thanks, Tara. And thank Evie for me too,” Riley said. He and Tara Walsh were walking through the full parking lot outside
of the building that housed the FRRT. It wasn’t until after returning to Denver that Riley had realized his Yukon was still
up in the mountains. Driving a government-issue vehicle was a good way to place a target on his back, so Khadi had called
the team of analysts. All of them had quickly offered up their vehicles for Riley’s use—all except for Gooey, who for some
reason considered his 1986 Toyota Tercel hatchback a “classic.”
“Anything we can do to help—seriously.” Tara spoke with a smile, but Riley could see that any happiness she may have been
showing was forced. “Are you doing okay, Riley? Khadi said you spent the night in the woods.”
Last night had been miserable. He had hiked at least six miles in the dark, and his face and arms were covered with irritating
little scratches from low-hanging branches. At 3:00 a.m., when Riley had finally met up with Khadi and Skeeter at a trail
lot by Dillon Lake, the joyous reunion had been brief. Skeeter had lost a lot of blood but had refused to go to a hospital
until Riley was found. The ride down the mountain had been mostly silent with Khadi driving the Suburban, Riley nodding off
in the passenger seat, and Skeeter stretched out in the back.
“Yeah, it was a longer hike than I thought. But I’m fine—no permanent damage.”
Tara nodded.
It’s
either work or personal
that’s
got her down, and if
it’s
work, I want
to know about it.
Riley decided to go fishing a bit. “So, what do you guys in the Room of Understanding hear from Scott and Jim?”
Tara stopped and placed her elbow on the roof of a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle. She took a deep breath. When Riley saw
water form in her eyes, he began getting very nervous. “What’s happened? Is it Scott?”
“No,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Scott’s okay—he’s invincible. It’s . . . I can’t, Riley. You’re not cleared for any
of this. It’s a breach of protocol.”
“Listen, Tara, I don’t want you to compromise any of your oaths. But given all that’s going on, if Jim were here, what do
you think he would say?”
“No, you’re right, you’re right! Jim’s certainly one who believes in situational ethics.” Tara took another deep breath. “Chris
Johnson is dead. His . . . his throat was cut.”
“Oh, man,” Riley said, leaning against an SUV. His mind immediately flashed to a time when he and Johnson had gotten into
a lighthearted argument about which was the best album by The Cars—the eponymous first one or
Candy-O
. Riley had really enjoyed the conversations he’d had with Johnson. The man had struck him as very intelligent, very well
read.
Then he remembered something else, and Tara’s mood made perfect sense. Scott had told Riley that there was the beginning of
an office romance forming between the lead analyst and the very intelligent ops man. Scott, who for a long time had harbored
an interest in Tara but considered her out of his league, had tried his best to mask his jealousy.
Reaching out his hand to Tara’s shoulder, Riley said, “I’m so sorry, Tara. He was a good man.”
“Of course he was a good man, but it always seems that the good ones are the first to go,” she replied brusquely. She didn’t
pull away from his touch, but she didn’t move closer either.
“I know. Trust me, I know.”
“I know you do, Riley.” Tara finally moved into Riley’s embrace. She let out two sobs, then breathed in deeply to get control.
“I just keep picturing him bleeding to death, alone, in some dirty alley in Istanbul.”
Istanbul? How in the world did they end up in Istanbul?
“Were they able to recover . . . ?”
Tara stepped back from Riley and returned to her place against the yellow Beetle. She tried her best to regain her professional
air. “No, the police had surrounded the scene by the time anyone got there. Now the State Department is up in arms. It won’t
be long now until heads start rolling. Jim figures that in about twelve hours he and Scott will be taken into custody by their
CIA contacts.”
“Twelve hours? Is that enough time to get al-’Aqran?”
“Jim seems to think so. His words were, ‘Al-’Aqran will be getting the grand tour of hell before you sit down to lunch.’”
Riley looked at his watch.
Lord, please protect these men as they
go into battle against evil,
he prayed as he did the time calculations in his brain. “Thanks for filling me in. It sounds like a lot of stuff is happening,
so I don’t want to keep you. If you can just point me in the direction of the car, I’ll let you get back to it.”
“Oh, sorry. You wouldn’t know. This is it,” Tara said, stepping away from the Volkswagen.
“It is?”
“We figured, give Riley the one car that no one will be expecting him to drive.”
Riley looked over the sunflower yellow Beetle with flower decals on the doors and a Free Tibet sticker in the back window.
“I can honestly say you found it.”
Tara handed Riley a set of keys hanging from a large peace symbol keychain with the bottom rim broken out so that, by holding
it with the spikes positioned between her fingers, Evie could use it as a weapon to defend herself. “Evie said that she was
sorry that the gas tank is so low, and she also recommended that you occasionally talk to the car for better gas mileage.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Riley said as he used the key fob to unlock the doors. “Thanks again, Tara. Please let
me know if there is anything I can do for you or for Chris’s family.”
“I will. But for now, you just worry about yourself.” She turned to walk away, and Riley opened the car door. But just before
he got in, Tara spun back around. “By the way, Riley, Khadi told me what you did up at the cabin—running right into the gunfire.
That was either incredibly brave or insanely stupid.”
Riley shrugged his shoulders. “Honestly? I’m beginning to think there’s not much difference between the two.”
Tara looked at him for a moment and then nodded. “Take care of yourself, Riley,” she said and walked away.
7:20 P.M. EEST
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
“Who was he?” Al-’Aqran stood at the kitchen table surrounded by a hastily called meeting of his leadership team. “If you
want me to leave with you—to run away from this man—I demand to know who he was!”
“But,
sayyid
, you were the one who recognized him,” his friend Arshad Hushimi said. “Can you not tell us the identity of the man?”
“Are you not listening to me? I said I thought I had seen his face before. It would have been nice to be able to question
him, but young Babrak’s hastiness removed that option.” He glared at the younger man, who refused to return his gaze.
Hamad Asaf spoke up from the seat to al-’Aqran’s right. “If you will forgive me,
sayyid
. Perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Maybe instead of asking
who
bumped into you, we should be asking
why
.”
“Finally, my friend, someone who is thinking,” al-’Aqran said with satisfaction as he returned to his seat. “The rest of you,
answer the man’s question.”
Hushimi answered first. “It seems that he was not trying to harm you. You yourself said he kept you from falling.”
“I believe he was probably trying to steal from you,” said Tahir Talib. “It is a common technique.”
“Exactly,” chimed in Hushimi. “Could he have been one of those piece-of-garbage, pickpocket Sulukule gypsies?”
Al-’Aqran shook his head violently. “What do I know of Sulukule and its gypsies? Besides, what do I have to steal? Think,
you mules!”
Asaf broke the silence at the table. “If he was not taking from you, then maybe he was leaving something with you.”
“Such as . . . ?”
Suddenly Asaf jumped to his feet. He began reaching into the old man’s pockets.
Al-’Aqran tried to swat his hands away. “What are you doing, you fool?”
“I’m checking you for a tracker or a transmitter,” he said, now running his hands up and down the long garment.
Babrak Zahir left the table and ran onto the balcony to look at the street, then quickly ran back in. He called as he passed,
“Forget your searching. If they planted something on you, you will not find it. It will be too small.”
At that moment, everything fell into place for al-’Aqran. He pushed Asaf away. “That face, those eyes—he was one of the men
guarding me in Italy. A second group of soldiers showed up after I had been taken. He was one of them. I remember when he
watched me, it seemed he never blinked.”
“The Americans are here?” There was panic in Talib’s voice.
A sound from outside caught al-’Aqran’s ear. “Stop! I heard something,” he yelled. But the sound didn’t return.
“Quick—we don’t have time to listen for phantoms,” Zahir said, running for the sofa and the weapons that were laid on the
floor behind it. “You must strip out of those clothes; then we have to get out of here! Talib, quit whimpering like an old
woman and get
sayyid
a new set of clothing! You,” he commanded, pointing to Hushimi, “help him get dressed.”
Just as Zahir reached the couch, the front door burst open. Al-’Aqran watched his young protégé almost put a bullet through
the head of the neighbor boy. The boy cried out.
“Why are you here?” Zahir yelled, walking toward him but still not lowering his gun. “Answer me! Why are you here?” He grabbed
the boy roughly by the neck.
The boy was trembling, and tears began to stream down his face. “I’m sorry!
Sayyid
asked me to tell him if strangers ever came around.” The boy turned toward al-’Aqran. “I was on my balcony! They’re here!”
“They’re here? Who’s here?” But before the boy could answer, the veteran of many battles realized what the sound he had heard
a moment ago was. It was the familiar clicking of sound-suppressed gunfire. A grim smile spread across his face. “The Americans.”
FRIDAY, MAY 29, 10:22 A.M. MDT
DENVER, COLORADO
Riley put the key into the ignition and cranked the starter. Immediately, his ears were assaulted by music at a volume that
had to be pushing the capabilities of the car’s standard-issue speakers. Fingers frantically pushed every button he could
find on the stereo. A CD appeared; then the power finally shut off.
Riley pulled the CD out:
The Battle of Los
Angeles
by Rage Against the Machine.
This girl
is definitely a study in contrasts,
Riley thought as he tossed the CD into the center console, then quickly followed it with the fake daisy from the car’s bud
vase.
He thought about swinging the car around in the parking space so that the summer sun wasn’t in his face. Instead, he just
put the visor down and turned up the air-conditioning. He dialed a number on his phone, and Keith Simmons answered on the
third ring.
“Listen, Pach, when you said there might be a little damage, I was thinking a broken window or two! But burning the whole
place down? What happened?” Simmons was trying to sound angry, but Riley could hear the smile behind his voice.
“Would you believe a barbecue gone bad?”
Simmons laughed. “Nah, I’ve seen you barbecue. It certainly ain’t that! Seriously, man, are you and Big Ugly okay?”
“I’m fine. Skeeter’s in the hospital, but he’ll be all right. Khadi Faroughi’s there with him.”
“Yeah, if that chick was with me, I’d be fine too.”
“Watch it,
kemosabe
. Listen, Keith, I know you said on your message not to worry about the cabin, but still, I am so sorry. If I knew that the
whole place would burn down—”
“You would have asked anyway. Come on, man, don’t be telling me differently.”
Riley winced at Simmons’s comment.
Do I really have that kind
of reputation?
Simmons spared him from any more self-analysis. “But like I said, it’s only stuff. Better than that, it’s only insured stuff.
A year ago, I would have gone all Donkey Kong on you—you know that. But
now
I know, my friend, that in this life there is more important stuff than
stuff
. So we’ll rebuild it—maybe this time with an indoor sauna in the basement. Just don’t go expecting an invitation to the housewarming,”
he finished with a laugh.
“Well then, God bless you, brother, because you certainly have blessed me.”
“Hey, before you hang up, Z really wants to meet up with you.”
“Afshin? What does he want?” The last thing Riley wanted right now was to talk to someone he hardly knew. He still hadn’t
had time to process what had happened last night, much less the news of Chris Johnson’s death. At the moment, all he wanted
to do was to find a dark place and brood.
“Who knows what’s in the mind of a rookie? I wouldn’t give him your cell number, so he just told me to please, please, please
pass the message along.”
Riley sighed angrily. “Do me a favor and text his number to me. I’ll give him a call.”
“Sounds good. So, can you tell me if you finished everything off up there?”
Not even close,
he thought. “Unfortunately, no. But I do think we may have taken the upper hand.”
“Good enough for me. Take care, Pach.”
Riley put the car in reverse and squealed the tires backing out of the parking space. But then a text message beeped through
on his phone. Sighing, he pulled back in. Sure enough, the message was from Simmons.
Fast fingers,
Riley thought as he dialed Afshin Ziafat’s number.
“Afshin? This is Riley,” he said when the rookie answered.
“Pach, man, I have been so worried about you. My church group and I have been praying up a storm for you. You doing okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for the prayers.”
Let’s
get this over with
fast.
“So, Simm said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Right, right. Hey, I’d really like to get together with you to, you know, to pray over you. God’s really been placing you
on my heart, and I think that if I could get a few of my buddies together and we could lay hands on you and pray—I mean it
certainly couldn’t do any harm.”
Riley rolled his eyes. Normally he would have really been grateful for Afshin’s offer, but right now it was just another source
of irritation. “I appreciate it, Afshin. I really do. It’s just that I’m still not the safest guy to be around.”
Take the out. Come on, man, take the out.
Unfortunately, it seemed that Afshin wasn’t looking for any outs. “I know that, Pach. But God is greater than anything the
world throws at us. Amen? My buddies and I aren’t scared. I just really think it would be good if we could meet up with you.”
Youthful enthusiasm and invincibility,
Riley thought. “Listen, Afshin, you don’t know how much I appreciate your prayers. It’s just that—”
A call beeped through—Meg Ricci.
Thank you, Meg.
Here’s
my out.
“Hey, buddy, I just had a call come through that I need to take. I’ll call you back and we’ll set up a time.”
“Sure, Pach. Please, sooner than later.” Riley could hear the disappointment in Ziafat’s voice.
That was weird.
Now, speaking of weird . . .
Riley switched over to Meg’s call. “Hey, Meg, I was going to—”
“Riley, you have to help me! They have Alessandra! They say they’re going to kill her if you don’t come to the house!”