toward the vehicle.
We made it back to the van without any issues, although everyone’s bell had been rung. While I moved out, I had noticed four bodies strewn around the yard that weren’t as lucky as we had been in the explosion. They lay unmoving, either unconscious or dead.
Jogging to the wood line, I had heard Retro on the radio. “Jesus, that was close. All four of these fuckers got the short end of the blast. I had no idea they were so close behind us.”
A second later, Decoy, bringing up the rear, came on. “Pike, they aren’t burned. And all have head wounds.”
Jennifer was right behind me, but she didn’t say a word. I caught her eye and knew in an instant what had happened by her expression. She shook her head, not wanting to talk on the open net. Maybe not wanting to talk at all because it would make the killings real.
I keyed my radio, “Get in the wood line. Let’s haul ass. They’re no threat.”
Jennifer nodded and gave me a tight smile.
Decoy came back on. “Pike, someone else could be out here. What did Jennifer see? Did she see what happened?”
Still moving toward the vans, knowing I was about to have a break in contact as my entire team moved at a snail’s pace, looking for the boogeyman while Jennifer and I kept running, I gave Jennifer a little apologetic shrug and said, “Koko killed them. Keep moving.”
Decoy came back. “Pike, not trying to be an asshole, but there are four bodies out here. Four dead with head shots, and we didn’t get a single radio call? Is she next to you? Is her radio out? Why didn’t she call? Make sure.”
I stopped and looked at Jennifer. For a split second, I saw a flash of indignation.
I clicked back on, giving them my irritation since Jennifer didn’t seem to mind the insult. “Get your ass moving, Goddammit. Yes, she killed all four. No, she didn’t call on the radio. I guess there wasn’t a fucking reason since they were all dead and our assault was protected. You copy?”
Nobody said a word.
Collapsing into the first van eight minutes later, the men all looked at her. They wanted her to talk, to say something that would give them an out for the usual ration of shit they wanted to throw her way. Cloaked compliments of her capability, and a highly selective opening of their world for her to enter. Something that was expected. She refused to say anything. I waited a beat, then gave out rapid orders.
“Jennifer, you got van two. Follow us to the hotel. Decoy, do what you can with the key you found. Figure out where it’s from. Get the hotel, then get a data dump on where it’s at. Retro, collate the biometric profile of the dead Arab and get it to the Taskforce before we forget.”
I waited until I saw Jennifer’s lights come on, then said, “Let’s roll. I want a location to hit by the time we reach Budapest.”
55
The loadmaster regained consciousness with a flutter of his eyelids. He cracked them and saw Kamil’s back at the computer. His hands were still handcuffed to the radiator pipe, and his lap was covered in blood. His shirt clung to his body, soaked in sweat. He saw his pants were still yanked down around his knees, and his thighs had more slices on them than he remembered before he passed out.
Kamil had come back in a rage, slapping his unprotected face and shouting nonsense about the police. When the loadmaster had no answers, Kamil had turned cold and clinical. He’d gone in the kitchen and returned with a knife and a shaker of salt. He’d made multiple small incisions on the loadmaster’s thighs, all just splitting the skin. He’d then begun to apply the salt, still asking questions about the police, alternating between Arabic and English.
The pain had been incredible. The loadmaster had screamed through the gag in his mouth until his voice had quit. Luckily, Kamil hadn’t asked about plans for escape. Only about the police. Even so, the loadmaster had almost told him about the cell phone. About the pilot’s plan. He had come close. Very, very close. Wanting to say anything to stop the pain. Through superhuman effort, he had kept the secret, knowing letting it go would cause his death. He had passed out before he could utter anything traitorous.
Keeping his eyes slitted, he heard Kamil talking to the computer. Luckily, because of the connection, both men were speaking slowly and distinctly, allowing him to comprehend the Arabic with his basic skills.
“I don’t know how it happened. Maybe it was just a coincidence. The loadmaster knows nothing, and he would have talked.”
The voice coming out of the Skype connection sounded mechanical. “I’m sorry about Adnan, but I’m relieved you have lived. That is the important thing. I’m going to need your help to accomplish our goal.”
“How? How can we continue? We’ve lost the explosives. Without them, the EFPs might as well be junk steel.”
“No, you’re wrong. The EFPs are the technology we need. It’s true we’ve been set back, but there are many ways to get explosives, and we have the patience to wait for another chance. This is a setback, but not failure.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Come to America. Meet me in Richmond in two days. The rest of the men are moving there now. I’ll have a meeting with them and decide what to do. It may mean simply waiting for a new opportunity. Our visas are good for six months.”
The loadmaster felt a moment of relief. Maybe these madmen would let them go. There was no need for an aircraft now, and they had nothing else to offer.
Kamil said, “I’ll get tickets tomorrow, but first I need to clean up the loose ends here. I have the loadmaster, so that’s not a problem, but I’ll need to set up a meeting with the pilot. I don’t want to bring him back here. This place is going to be messy enough.”
It took a moment before the meaning of the last sentence sank into the loadmaster’s head.
Standing in a courtyard off of Hajos Avenue, I hoped we were in the right place. Like a lot of buildings in the eastern bloc of the old soviet sphere of influence, this one was an imposing four-story structure that dripped despair. Nothing but concrete and iron, all circling around a depressing inner courtyard that would never have enough light to grow anything. The bottom level housed what could charitably be called honest businesses but were more than likely fly-by-night tourist fleece jobs. I only cared about one thing: The courtyard was surrounded by balconies, giving anyone who walked out the ability to see us.
The key we had found had a brass plate on it with an engraving of the Budapest Opera House on one side, and a room number and “if found, please call” phone number on the other side. Doing some quick research on the phone number, we had come up with a broker of apartments in Budapest who rented to travelers looking for a cheap stay. Further research had located a stretch of apartment rooms he maintained one block from the fabled Budapest Opera House on Andrassy Street on the Pest side of the Danube. We’d been able to glean photos of the building, along with check-in/check-out procedures, but outside of the engraving on the key, we really had no way of knowing if we were in the right place. The broker might have used the same engraving for all of his keys, regardless of location.
It was past midnight, but Andrassy Street was still rocking a block away. Jennifer had dropped us off there, right next to the metro stop, and we’d moved straight to the building we had found from our research.
A lot of people were moving around, even here, off of the main thoroughfare. I would never have expected this Eastern European country to be such a hotspot for nightlife, but apparently it was, which would work in our favor. The building, after all, had at least a few apartments rented by tourists, so it wasn’t like a stranger would be out of place, and with the traffic coming and going, we’d be just one of many. Even so, a fight in here would be hard to escape from. One way in and one way out, along with the fact that we’d be running down four flights of stairs. We couldn’t afford a shoot-out, regardless of the fact that we would win.
