One Rough Man

“You’re a genius!” she exclaimed.

She got a stranglehold on my neck, giving it a hug. She pecked my cheek with a light kiss.

What the hell was that? I leaned away from her.

“I can’t believe you just did that! It’s like black magic or something. Why don’t you raise your hands and say, ‘Behave, and I’ll bring back the sun’?”

“Hold on. All this really says is that the message went through Norway as a first gate. It doesn’t mean it came from Norway. There’s a good chance of that, but it isn’t absolute proof. It’s easy to fool this type of thing.”

“All right, all right. It’s still pretty cool. You’re a walking library of cool stuff.”

I didn’t let it show, but I was secretly pleased with the attention. If I’d had a tail, I’d have been wagging it like a dog getting a pat from his owner. I’m pathetic.

“I’m going to delete this completely. If nothing else, it’ll slow down the terrorists.”

Making sure the message was gone from both the in-box and the trash file, I said, “I got a couple of rooms in D.C. Tomorrow, I’ll give a friend from my old unit a call. He’s an Arabic speaker and can decipher both this message and the one before. Sound like a plan?”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

We headed back to our rooms to rack out. Jennifer opened her door, then turned around.

“Hey, Pike?”

I stopped working my key. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry for that thing in the business center. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

She couldn’t have made me more uncomfortable if she had asked to borrow a condom. Why bring it up?

“That’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just still a little touchy about that sort of thing, I guess. Not your fault.”

“That’s what I mean. I could tell I made you uncomfortable. I wasn’t trying to… to… make you think of your wife. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure we’re still on the same sheet of music. I shouldn’t have done that.” She broke into a smile. “But you do have some neat tricks.”

* * *

Abu Bakr awoke before Abu Sayyidd. He could feel the endgame in his bones and was itching to bring it about. Quietly setting up the M4, he logged on to the Internet and checked the next address on the e-mail list. Two messages were in the in-box, both supposedly from Nigeria telling him he had been named in a rich man’s will. All he needed to do was wire some money to get his inheritance. Disappointed, Bakr checked the other addresses. None contained the message he was looking for. This was getting a little annoying. Working at a snail’s pace was fine when one had that luxury, but they needed to get moving. It had been over forty-eight hours since their last message.

He woke up Sayyidd.

“We have no new message.”

Sayyidd rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, secretly happy that his desire to go to bed earlier had proved to be the right call.

“How long should we wait? What do we do if he never contacts us?”

“I think we should send another message to The Sheik. If that doesn’t work, we head out on our own. I think I can get some SEMTEX explosives from some helpers in the Balkans, but we won’t be able to implicate the Persians. God willing, we’ll still accomplish our mission.”

Sayyidd was pleased that Bakr was now getting impatient, and was willing to strike out together with or without the message.

“Let’s send the e-mail,” he said.

Bakr turned back to the computer and typed a simple message:

We have successfully entered the country of Walid. He hasn’t contacted us. We wanted to ensure that he knew we were ready to meet. God willing, please give us the path to take.

Bakr closed the laptop. “Now we wait.”

66

Lucas leaned back from his computer with a new appreciation for his adversary. His research/administration assistant had sent him a data dump on his assigned targets. On the screen was the enlisted record brief for Nephilim Logan, the man he knew as Pike. The ERB was a one-page document used by the U.S. Army to encapsulate a soldier’s career. In Pike’s case, his assignments read like a who’s who of the military elite. Initial assignment to the 3rd Ranger Battalion, on to Special Forces, with two years in Okinawa in 1st Bn, 1st Special Forces Group, followed by eleven years in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment — Delta. His last assignment had been as some do-nothing communications technician on Fort Bragg. Retirement job.

His military schooling had produced more badges than he was allowed to wear at any one time on his uniform, to include a Combat Infantryman’s Badge with a star, indicating combat in two different conflicts. He would clearly not be an easy target. Another time, another place, and we’d be drinking beers together.

Jennifer Cahill, on the other hand, had proven to be exactly as advertised: a college student. The only thing remarkable about her was her picture, since even the passport photo couldn’t hide her good looks. Other than that, she had spent most of her adult life as either a student or a housewife.

Lucas was a careful, meticulous planner. He would become obsessed with the research on his targets prior to conducting a mission. It was what made him successful on assignments that were way outside the bounds of U.S. law. In truth, it was no different than what he’d done while in the military. Learn about the enemy in the hopes of exploiting a weakness and avoiding enemy strengths. To this end, he’d found it useful in his work to subscribe to various data mining Web sites available on the Internet. It never failed to amaze him how much information was free for the taking to someone who wanted to look.

He was broken out of his thoughts by the phone ringing. Looking at the caller ID, he saw it was Standish. Shit. Just what I need.

“Hello?”

“Hey. Standish here. Have you heard anything yet?”

Why the hell is he bothering me? Standish had no expertise at all in man-hunting. His skills were in personal destruction from the shadows. Cowardly stabbing people in the back. The truth of the matter was that Lucas respected the target Standish had given him much more than he did Standish himself. But Standish was paying the bills. I just need to cut out this micromanaging bullshit.

“Standish. Listen to me. You gave me the phone less than twenty-four hours ago. I’m not sure what you think’s going to happen, but your target is a hard, hard man. This isn’t going to be easy. I’ll get it done, but I won’t be answering to you every five minutes. I’ll call you when the mission’s accomplished. If you don’t hear from me, assume it hasn’t been done. You got that?”

“Whoa. I’m the one paying for this. If I want information, you’ll give it to me. I’m not going to throw money at you just to have you blow it without oversight. Do you have that?”

“Yeah. I got it. Fuck this. I quit.”

“What? You can’t quit. You owe me.”

Lucas snarled, “I owe you nothing. You push that button one more time and you’re going to see firsthand what I owe you. Understand? I don’t want to hear that ever again.”

Lucas waited a few seconds, hearing nothing but breathing.

“Call me when you have something.”