Warning Order (24 page)

“Good, we will be there soon,” Sara said, hanging up.

“I hope your uncle likes Americans,” Mason said as he took back the phone.

“No one likes Americans,” Sara replied, garnering a chuckle from Zeus.

“What are you laughing at?” he asked the Libyan.

Zeus poked his shoulder from the backseat. “She is right, no one likes you.”

“I'm not talking about me,” he said, but in reality, he knew he was.

Sara was quick to clarify her statement. “I am in your debt.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“The same thing that always happens,” she said bitterly. “Men come from the south, and we are left alone to fight them.”

“Okay, but why?”

“Because this is our home.”

“All right, but what were you doing in Mosul? You are a Kurd, are you not?”

“My uncle sent me to get his wife,” Sara said softly, “but she was killed by those men.”

“Why would he send you? You're just a—”

“Just a what?” she demanded angrily. “A girl? Can not a girl fight just as well as a man?”

“That's not what I meant,” Mason backpedaled. “Whoa,” he thought, “have to watch out with this one.” Then she muttered something under her breath.

“What was that? I missed it.”

“I said you are all the same. You think that only men can fight for what is theirs.”

“Oh, is that right?” Mason said, getting a little heated himself. “If men are all the same, then why did we save you back there?” Zeus groaned behind him, and he turned around to see the Libyan shaking his head.

“What?”

“That is not something you want to say in a situation like this,” Zeus said.

“She started it. I just wanted to know where the hell we were going,” Mason protested.

“You must forgive my friend,” Zeus said to Sara. “He is a good man, but he does not understand women.”

“Fuck him,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Ahh, shit, look, I didn't mean to say that, I just . . .” He trailed off, not knowing what to say next.

“It is fine,” Sara said, her voice cracking. “If you had not showed up, I don't know what I would have done.”

“Those men, where did they grab you?”

She explained, “My uncle is a powerful man in ErbÄ«l. When he learned that the fighters were coming north, he tried to warn the US, but they didn't listen. He sent my brother to Mosul, and when he didn't hear back from him, he sent me. I was told he never made it to my aunt's house.”

“And the others?” Mason asked, motioning to the back of the truck.

“The fighters had lists of people given to them by the Iraqi police. They were going from house to house, rounding up the undesirables and taking them outside the city. These new fighters have only been there for a few days and have already killed so many. Baghdadi is a terrible man.”

“Who?” Mason asked, not recognizing the name.

“Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the man responsible for bringing the Syrians into Iraq. He is a brutal, hateful man.”

It was the same story Mason had heard years ago when they were looking for Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant who'd inherited the al Qaeda mantle in Iraq. The clerics had learned long ago that they could cloak their violent rhetoric in the Koran and get their followers to conduct unspeakable horrors in Allah's name.

He was thinking how things never changed, when the Iridium vibrated in his hand.

“It's not him!” Renee said breathlessly as soon as the call connected.

“What do you mean, it's not him? He had the phone.”

“His name is Ali Hasa. He is a Syrian national. I checked it in two separate databases.”

Zeus was leaning forward on top of the seat, but Mason ignored him.

“Are you sure?”

“A hundred percent, but that's not the worst part. The
George Bush
was sunk in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz, and al Qatar is taking credit. The president wants blood.”

“Wait, what?” Mason cried, appalled. “How does a militia leader sink an aircraft carrier?”

“No one knows. They think he used some kind of mine. Things are crazy around here. There is a huge operation in the works.”

“Ah, shit, don't tell me that,” Mason said, although he realized that, of course, the United States couldn't let that ride.

“Look, I'm kinda out of the loop right now, but we have guys coming in from everywhere. We need you back here.”

“I can't right now,” he said.

“Look, I will help you find this guy, but the task force is going to need you.”

Rejoining the task force meant that Kane would have to take orders, and they wouldn't be directed toward putting al Qatar's head in a box. “I have to go,” he said impatiently.

“Mason, don't—”

He hung up the phone, cutting her off, and announced to Zeus, “It wasn't him.”

“Fuck. I thought for sure I was going to get a vacation.”

But Mason wasn't listening. All he knew was that al Qatar was still alive. That meant his mission ahead was crystal clear.

J
acob Simmons drained the glass of Bushmills whiskey, and he was considering pouring another when his phone began vibrating across his desk. He checked his watch—it was only eight thirty in the morning, but he had been drinking since well into the night, and he knew that the wife was probably pissed that he hadn't come home.

He was drunk, and in no mood to talk to her, especially since he was expected to be in the Situation Room in an hour. Deciding that another shot of Irish whiskey wasn't going to hurt, he poured another finger into the glass and ignored the phone.

“Sir, I have your packets,” his secretary said as she entered the room and placed a thick binder on his desk. “Can I get you some coffee, sir?”

“That would be nice,” he muttered, running his hands over his face as he headed to the bathroom.

Simmons closed the door behind him and flipped on the light. He knew that Cage would go ballistic if he showed up to the briefing looking like a drunk, and a part of him almost didn't care. But he knew that he was walking a fine line with his old friend right now and couldn't afford to push it.

He turned on the water in his personal shower, and as it heated up, he ran a razor over his face. The steam clouded up the mirror, forcing him to wipe it off to finish up the shave. In the rough oval he cleared out, he realized that he hated the man staring back at him.

“How has it come to this?” he asked, running the blade over his chin.

He undressed and stepped into the shower. The water felt great as it splashed over his body, and he let the heat wash over him for a few minutes. “Now to get sober,” he told himself. He turned the hot water all the way off and forced himself to stand under the suddenly freezing spray.

The cold water stung his skin, and yanked the breath from his lungs, but he forced himself to take it until his skin began to turn blue. No matter how much he drank, or the amount of pain he inflicted on himself, the fact that he was responsible for almost three thousand American deaths would not go away.

“Damn it,” he sobbed, turning the hot water back on.

If not for his wife and daughter, he would have used the pistol he kept in his desk last night, but he knew that he'd already caused his family enough harm—even though they knew nothing about what he'd done.

As Simmons began to warm back up, he knew that his part in the plot was going to get out eventually, and then what the hell was he going to do?

He still felt a little drunk when he got out of the shower and dressed in the fresh suit he kept on standby. A cup of coffee sat steaming on his desk, and as he reached for it, his phone beeped, telling him he had a message.

Jacob expected it to be an angry voice mail from his wife, but as he slid his finger over the phone, he saw it was a text message from his daughter. He took a sip of the coffee, clicked on the message—and then felt his blood turn cold.

The coffee burned his hand as he dropped it, and he barely had time to grab the trash can before he vomited. The whiskey burned his throat with scalding force, and his secretary came into the room, a look of concern on her face.

“Sir, are you okay?”

“Get the fuck out,” he screamed. His hands scrambled for the phone, where the picture of his daughter's tear-streaked face was still displayed starkly.

A large arrow was centered over the strip of cloth tied across her mouth, and as soon as he pressed his thumb over the icon, her screams filled the room. The video had been shot in his dining room, and the camera slowly panned over his daughter, who was tied to a chair, before moving to his wife, who was similarly bound.

Around her neck a note was attached to her blouse that read, “Come Home—Alone.”

C
an you fix it?” Mason asked the back of Grinch's legs as the sniper tinkered with the cargo truck's engine.

“Hell no,” his muffled voice replied from under the hood. “This thing is fucked.”

“Damn it. Well, it looks like we're walking,” he said to Sara. “You mind telling me where we are going now?”

“There is a village a few miles from here,” she said anxiously. “My uncle has people there who can get us across the river.”

“We need to hurry,” he said, gazing over at the group of civilians who were still sitting in the bed of the truck.

“Boss, looks like we have company,” Blaine called out, his arm pointing to the south, where a dust cloud was growing in the distance.

“Shit, we need to move,
now
.”

Mason raised the ACOG and tried to see how many vehicles were speeding toward them, but all he could make out was the sun flashing off glass. He had known that it was only a matter of time before the insurgents found the bodies they had left behind, but he'd hadn't planned on the truck breaking down.

“How far is the village?” he asked again as Grinch hopped down from the front of the truck and wiped his grease-soaked hands on the front of his pants.

“A few kilometers,” she said with a sinking voice.

The civilians in the back of the truck began pointing at the billowing cloud of dust. Their panicked cries filled the air. Mason knew there was no chance that they could break contact and keep them safe.

“I need you to take as many people as you can fit into the Land Cruiser and go,” he said to Sara.

“You want me to leave you here?”

“It's either that, or we all die. Grinch, grab our gear and find a suitable position to fight,” he ordered as he hurried to the back of the cargo truck.

There was no way everyone could fit in the truck, so Mason was forced to play his final card.

“Get them to cover. I'm going to call Anderson,” he told Blaine, trying to judge how much time they had before their pursuers arrived. The medic began herding the civilians into the wadi, leaving Mason to swallow his pride and make the call.

“I wondered if I was ever going to hear from you again,” Anderson said sharply after picking up. Where in the fuck is David?”

“No idea, but we can talk about that later. Right now I need help bad,” Mason said, looking down at his wrist-mounted GPS.

“What makes you think I'm going to help you?”

“'Cause you're going to need me to pull off your little operation.”

Anderson processed this claim for several moments before replying. “Fine, but if I do this, you play by my rules from now on.”

“Whatever you say, boss man, but if you don't launch an attack in the next fifteen minutes, I'm not going to be able to help anyone.”

“Send me your grid.”

Mason read the coordinates off the Garmin and then added, “I have five foreign nationals with me. They are going to need a ride too.”

“Fine, but Mason?”

“Yeah?”

“If you fuck me on this, I'm going to put you down. You hear me?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

He was putting away the sat phone as the Libyan walked up.

“How hard was that?” Zeus asked.

Mason's old friend never failed to make him smile. “You don't want to know,” he replied.

“What is happening?” Sara asked, looking at both of them.

“You need to go with the others,” Mason said simply.

“Sometimes we must do what we have to so that we can survive,” she said inscrutably, and he realized she was paying him a compliment.

“That's true,” he replied.

“You are not like all the rest.”

“I told you people liked me,” Mason replied. “Now please, go join the others.”

“You know,” Zeus pointed out, “she is just being polite.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Mason said, slinging his assault pack. He and Zeus walked over to the edge of the wadi, where Grinch was setting up their makeshift position.

It was a good spot, several dozen feet north of the disabled cargo truck, where two of the dried rivulets came together to form a Y. Near the front of the trench was a small shelf that Grinch was already standing on, and just below him, the depression was deep enough for Sara and the other refugees to hide.

Blaine had them crouched down along the gravel-lined bottom, and he was trying to find cover for them to use.

Where the two fingers of the wadi came together, Mason realized, it was tight enough for them to set up a 360-degree perimeter, with enough cover for them to shoot from. It was too wide for a truck to drive over, so they didn't need to worry about being flanked, but he knew that if he wasn't able to direct fire from two sides, they couldn't deny the fighters freedom of movement.

“You guys hold here. Help is on the way,” he said, yanking an M18 claymore mine from the big pocket.

“What the hell are you going to do with that?” Grinch asked.