Warning Order (17 page)

“Mason, what are we going to do with Mr. Boland?” Zeus asked in Arabic.

“I don't know,” he said honestly.

“We can't carry the body around with us. It's not exactly sanitary.”

“I'm not burying him in this shithole.”

“I'm not saying we should. I just think that his family might—”

“I hear you,” Mason snapped.

He could tell by the patience in Zeus's voice that he wasn't finished. “Look, I know what you're going to do. I've seen that look before, but it's going to get bloody, and I don't think they are ready,” Zeus whispered, motioning to the sleeping men in the back.

“Don't you even think about cutting me out of this,” Grinch replied in his broken Arabic as he opened one eye. “T.J. was my friend too, and someone has to pay for what happened.”

Mason cracked the window, letting the smoke trail out into the desert. Men like Boland were supposed to die in a pile of their own brass, he thought grimly, not tied to some fucking chair. Suddenly it all seemed so pointless.

Mason knew that he was slowing down, and even though he would never say it out loud, it scared him. He was only thirty-two, but he felt twice that. His leg bothered him every day, and there was only so much damage a man could take before his number finally came up.

But the worst part was that he didn't know anything else. If he gave it all up, what was he going to do? Mason had always wanted to be a soldier—that's what he was—and without that one constant, he knew he'd be lost.

“You have a family,” he said, turning to look at Grinch.

“So? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“A lot. Zeus and I, we have nothing—this is all we know,” Mason said, opening his arms to encompass the filthy truck. “Is that what you want?”

“Why don't you just call the colonel?” Blaine piped in. “You think he'd let this stand?”

“Anderson is the problem.”

Blaine was surprised by Mason's harshness. “What are you talking about?”

“I've worked with Anderson, back before all of this, and he's not the guy you think he is.” He turned himself halfway around, so the men in the back could see his face. “You guys know me, you know what I've done and what I've been through, so I hope you will listen to what I'm about to say. This mission has his fingerprints all over it, and you can bank on the fact that Anderson is in this just as deep as al Qatar. There is no way a colonel sends two strike teams into an unsecure objective, in broad fucking daylight, unless someone told him to.”

The two men didn't respond, trying to process what Mason was saying. He had told them about his time in the Anvil Program, and his exploits during Iraq and Afghanistan were legendary.

David had let him handpick his recon team, and the first thing he'd done was to tell his men all about his time on the run. He had never lied to them and wasn't about to start now. Soldiers like Grinch and Blaine needed to believe in the men they followed and instead of alienating them, Kane's honesty made them work tirelessly to earn his approval.

Mason went on. “I don't know how, but I am going to find al Qatar, and then I'm going to kill him—and anyone else who was involved. I'm warning you: we can't trust the task force, and nobody is going to be coming when we get in the shit. And after that's all done, if I make it out alive, I'm going to get Anderson.” He wanted to make sure they realized that. “So, if I were you, I'd be on the next thing smoking, and I'd never look back.”

He wasn't sure he liked their replies. “I'm in,” Grinch said without hesitation.

“Me too. Just tell me what to do.”

Mason looked over at Zeus, who shrugged behind the wheel. “I'd rather be sunning on the Riviera, but what the hell . . .”

Mason was glad it was all settled. This was the kind of team he wanted. “Okay, but before that, we have to get someone out here to recover Boland.”

“How the hell are you going to do that without calling Anderson?”

“I'm going to use this,” he said, holding up the dead man's beacon.

R
enee waited for as long as she could before slipping out of her room in search of Mr. David. She knocked softly at his door, but after getting no response, she headed to the operations area in hopes he might be there.

The ops center was quiet and dark, with the major source of light shining dimly from a laptop onto Dustin Toomes.

“Dustin,” she said, approaching the man. He was wholly absorbed in some DVD that was playing on his laptop.

The analyst jumped as she put her hand on his shoulder. He yanked the bulky earphones off his head. “Renee, wh—what are you doing up?” he stuttered.

Toomes had been taking a lot of shit from the operators who'd returned from the mission, and he wore a resigned expression as he steeled himself for still another attack.

It was time to flip the script. “How's it going?” she began sweetly.

“It's been a shitty couple of days. Anderson's sending me back to the States,” he said with a sigh.

“That sucks,” she said, pretending outrage. “You've been a real asset.”

Though it was a lie, he was grateful to hear it. “Thanks, that means a lot.”

“What are you watching?”

“It, um, it's
Return of the Jedi
,” he said sheepishly.

She knew exactly how to play the analyst. “That's my favorite one. You know, my dad loved
Star Wars
. We used to watch them all the time on VHS.”

“Really, I never would have guessed,” he replied.

“Look, I need a favor,” she said, cutting to the chase.

A frown filled his face immediately. “Renee, I can't talk about—”

She raised her hand, cutting him off. “Just listen to what I have to say.” She casually pulled over one of the rolling chairs and took a seat.

“People died,” she said. “We trusted you, and the intel was wrong.”

“I feel like shit, but there is nothing I can tell you about the source, or anything else.”

She expected Toomes to say that. “I don't need you to tell me about the source. I already know who it is.”

“That's not possible,” he said.

“Al Qatar.”

He was astonished, giving himself away. “How the hell—?”

“That's not important right now, Dustin,” she said, leaning close. “Look, I know that someone fed you the source, and you were acting on good faith. You're not a bad guy, you didn't want this to happen, but the fact is that you're still responsible.”

Dustin's shoulders began to shake. She laid a hand on his arm, consoling him. He tried hard to hold back the tears, but Renee's gentle touch had broken through the wall, and everything came tumbling out.

“Al Qatar was cleared by Boland. I checked him out before sending it up. He had the creds and had worked with the CIA before. I didn't know.”

Renee kept stroking his arm softly. “What happened to Boland?”

“What do you mean?”

“Before the mission, Boland disappeared for a while. What happened? Where did he go?”

The analyst wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his sweater and then glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. “You have to understand, this came from the top.”

“Higher than Anderson?” she asked, feigning surprise.

“It all started in Washington. The DOD found a way to use cell phone towers to jam communications over a small area.” The technology involved started to get him excited. “It's genius, really, and easy to use because it works off organic sources. All Boland had to do was plug them in and leave 'em.”

“What happened?”

“Khalid grabbed him. No one has any idea how he knew they were even in country, but he grabbed Boland just as he crossed the border. Washington kept a lid on it, and when he managed to escape, he convinced someone that he could get the case back.”

Renee did her best to hide her fury. “So that was the whole reason we launched the operation?”

“Exactly. I was given al Qatar's name and a bank account, and the agency wired him two million in exchange for the target location. You know the rest.”

She sure as hell did. A lot of good men had died. “How do I find this al Qatar?”

“Shit, I don't know.”

His excuse didn't sound convincing, and she probed further. “Isn't that your job?”

“Yeah, but I can't log into the system without leaving a trail. I'm already in deep shit as it is.”

“This is your chance to make amends for the men who died out there,” she pointed out, making herself sound stern, “and you're worried about your own ass? I thought you were better than that.”

This argument hit home. “You have to believe me, there is nothing that I can do,” Toomes insisted.

“What if I wire half a million into your account and then I tip off a guy I know in the FBI?” Renee was coming up with the plan on the fly, but she couldn't think of a better way to get the man to do what she wanted.

“Why would you do that?”

“The question is, why would you do it? You think they are going to put you in jail? Hell, no, what they will do is send someone like me to your house, and I will happily put a bullet in the back of your head.”

“Jesus,” he moaned.

She reverted back to the gentle approach. “Find al Qatar. I know you can.”

Dustin saw the light at last. After exiting out of the movie, his fingers began flying across the keyboard. Different programs popped up on the screen as he typed prompts into the command line. Renee had no idea what he was doing, but as long as he got what she wanted, she didn't care.

She glanced around the TOC, praying that no one disturbed the man as he worked. The keystrokes sounded incredibly loud as he hammered away, his hands a blur. Soon one of the windows showed rows of numbers scrolling vertically through what she assumed was a phone-tracking database. Meanwhile, he opened another program and typed in his access code.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Boland had a program on his cell phone that captured any phone call made close to him. The program,” he said, pointing at the scrolling window, “runs those numbers to an NSA database, looking for any patterns.”

“What kind of patterns?”

“Once a number is captured, we are able to slave the originating phone, and capture all outgoing and ingoing calls. So even if it is not active, we still know who that person called or whoever called him.”

She checked surreptitiously over her shoulder again, so he wouldn't get nervous. “How long is this going to take?”

He was entranced by the numbers. “Could take all night—I have no idea. Wait, here we go.” He pointed. “A phone called this number in the States three hours before we launched. That same number called another phone the same day as the operation, and again today.”

“Can you find out whose phone it is?

“No, all it tells me is that one of the phones was purchased in Virginia.”

That linked up Washington, DC. “Okay, what about the other number?”

“It's a satellite phone. One call originated in Syria, and the second call came from . . . it came from Iraq.”

“What are the chances that it's al Qatar?”

“Renee,” he said, like she didn't understand the complex world he lived in, “I can't give you an answer to that without a hell of a lot more time. I can track the phone, tell you where it is right now, but the only way I can tell you whose phone it is would be to have eyes on it.”

Al Qatar was an Iraqi who had definitely been placed in Syria earlier that day. Where else would he go after the operation? Renee knew it was a gamble, but she had learned long ago to trust her gut. It was all she had, but she could work with it.

“How do I track that number?” she asked impatiently. “I want to know where the fuck it goes.”

“Give me your iPhone.”

“Don't tell me there's an app for that.” She instantly pulled out her phone, before he could change his mind. Seeing it, he winced. “Just know that after that, it's your ass on the line, not mine.”

“Fine, do it,” she said. Already she knew the next phone call she was going to make: to Mason.

S
o how's your other boss?” David asked, placing his napkin on the table and reaching for the glass of Johnny Walker Black.

“Still shady. You were right about him.”

“Don't be too hard on him. Patrick was a good soldier and a good friend.”

“Maybe so, but treason? Come on, the dude's a piece of shit.”

The two men had finished dinner, and David was beginning to feel the effects of the long journey. More than anything, he wanted to lie down, but he still had work to do.

“You want some coffee?” he asked, draining the glass before getting to his feet.

“Sure, I'll take some.”

The spy headed for the small kitchen. “So, fill me in.”

“First off, how did you know?” Captain Brantley asked as David opened a bottle of water and poured it into a saucepan on the stove.

“Know what?”

“About Vann.”

“He and I worked together in Iraq back in 2003, when he was attached to JSOC. He was relentless—hell, he was the main reason they found Zarqawi,” David answered, pouring coffee grounds into the bottom of an aged French press while he waited for the water to boil.

“Yeah, we all know that story.”

“He believed that we could reprogram some of the detainees and use them as informers. I was against the idea, but, as usual, no one listens to me.”

“Okay, nice history lesson, but when you came to me seven months ago, how did you know what he was going to do?”

“The computer,” David said.

“Your holy grail,” the man said, looking over at the laptop set on the wooden coffee table. “Are you ever going to let me look at it?”