Enemy of Mine

against Retro’s back, when the next call came in.

“She’s stopped in a courtyard, sitting on a bench next to a mosque. It looks like a women-only mosque. We’re sticking out big time.”

Shit. Crusty was proving to be pretty damn smart after all. “Clear out. Can you send a guy through the courtyard every few minutes? Does it naturally lead somewhere else?”

“Yeah, it does, but I’m going to run out of people in three minutes. We can’t park our ass here.”

“I’ve got two more. Start the rotation and we’ll follow up. We can start back the other way one by one if we have to. Where are you?”

Instead of directions, Knuckles heard, “I have no idea. Sending a picture.”

Knuckles pulled out his phone, got the SMS text with the picture, and saw the mosque, a small one hemmed in by the usual stone-and-stucco buildings left and right, separated by less than four feet. Knowing the photograph was geo-tagged with its location, he initiated the GPS feature of the phone and loaded the picture. Within seconds, he had an arrow directing him to Johnny’s location, along with a distance scale showing three hundred meters.

“Got it. On the way.”

By the time Knuckles reached the courtyard, Johnny had used up all of his men, one after the other slowly walking through the open space and continuing on. Knuckles knew the individual walks of thirtysomething males would look out of place to anyone on the hunt, regardless of whether they did anything suspicious. He began calculating how to camouflage what they were doing and saw it was impossible. They’d get one pass each on the mosque. Maybe two at the most, but no more than that.

We need Jennifer for this bullshit.

The thought came unbidden and surprised him.

There had been a lot of discussion about females in the Taskforce after Jennifer and Pike had stopped a terrorist strike the year before. Knuckles, along with everyone else in the Taskforce, had argued against the idea. There had never been a female on the sharp end of the spear, and he, along with plenty of other operators, was determined to see that didn’t change. There was no way a female could do what they did. Sure, Jennifer had risen to the occasion, but she was different. It wasn’t like they all would.

During the debate inside Taskforce headquarters, Pike had said nothing. He’d simply looked at Knuckles with disappointment.

Now Knuckles realized why. Pike had never argued the point at the time because he knew words alone would do no good. The men would have to realize what Jennifer brought to the table on their own. Like now. A man and woman together could spend all day in that courtyard and not draw attention.

He stopped short of the entrance to the courtyard, inside a cobblestone alley with brick-and-stucco residences built hundreds of years ago hemming him in. He sent Retro in first and backtracked out of the alley. While wandering through a meat market, waiting on Retro’s call of being off target, he got their first indication of movement.

“All elements, she’s off the bench and standing on the steps to the mosque. There’s a woman in a burqa walking toward her.”

Burqa? The full-length dress that covered a woman from head to toe was not unheard of in Tunisia, but it certainly wasn’t competing as a lead in Tunisian woman’s fashion. Knuckles had seen very few in his multiple tours here.

He said, “Keep eyes on. Keep eyes on.”

“She’s eyeballing me. I can’t. I’m off target.”

Knuckles broke protocol and sprinted to the entrance of the courtyard, slowing down to a walking pace when he came within view of the mosque. He saw the burqa take a bag from the mistress as they both walked up the steps and entered the mosque. The gait of the covered woman triggered a memory in Knuckles’ mind, gleaned from countless hours of surveillance.

Crusty.

If it was Crusty, his plan was pretty ingenious, since there was no way a western male would be able to penetrate a female-only mosque. Crusty didn’t have to run any countersurveillance on his mistress, as they’d be able to lose whoever was on them just by entering. Except we have some tricks as well.

He called Blaine, sending him the geo-tagged picture of their location. “Get Birdseye up. Crusty’s got some plan of escape out of that mosque, and I’m betting it’s the roof.”

Blaine said, “He’s already airborne, doing a ‘pipeline survey’ north to south. He’ll be on team net, ETA thirty seconds.”

Knuckles smiled at Blaine bending his own rules, and poked him in the eye. “What happened to one shot with the bird?”

“He’s circling north of the city. You’ll still only get one pass. Don’t push it.”

“Roger that.” Knuckles switched back to the team net. “Johnny, do some research on the buildings adjacent to the mosque. If he were going to jump, which one would he go to?”

Birdseye came on. “Knuckles, on station. You get about five minutes on target before I deviate from my flight plan. After that, it’s a thirty-minute turnaround from the oil fields.”

“Roger. You got eyes on the roof?”

“Clean shot. Can see it clearly through optics.”

“Retro, you getting the feed?” He knew that Retro had stopped what he was doing as soon as he heard the Birdseye call, locating a concealed position that would allow him to set up his downlink and handheld video screen.

“Roger. Nothing moving right now.”

Johnny said, “Looks like the buildings left and right are apartments. The one to the rear is a small hotel. It also has an alley that leads to the Medina wall.”

That’s it. He gave instructions to Johnny, setting his team up in a box around the hotel. He left Retro in place and called Decoy to meet him in the alley as the assault element. Before Decoy arrived, Retro said, “Got movement on the roof. Burqa woman and the mistress just exited.”

“Decoy, what’s your status?” Knuckles said, “If that’s Crusty, we’ll know shortly. He can’t jump from roof to roof wearing that sack.”

“Two minutes. Brett and I’ll be there in two minutes.”

Retro said, “Mistress went to the left/east wall and looked across to the adjacent building.”

East? That’s not the hotel.

“Say again? Which wall?”

“She’s running. She’s across. East building. I say again, east building.”

Shit.

“Burqa’s off. It’s Crusty. He’s throwing the luggage across.”

“Roger all. Johnny, box the east building now. We’re on the way.”

Knuckles took off, running into Decoy and his other teammate when he rounded the corner. They said nothing, just falling into step behind him.

Johnny came on. “We’re set. Only way in and out is the north and south.”

“Which one will he use? Where should we stage?”

“North. Stage north in the alley. South fronts some shops. He’ll probably want to stay out of sight this close to the mosque.”

Yeah. Why would he come out so close? Risky.

Retro came on. “They’re still going. They didn’t enter the building. They’re going to the next building to the east. I say again, the mistress just jumped to the next building to the east. Crusty’s throwing luggage.”

Jesus Christ! Johnny came on before he issued a command. “Moving. This building makes more sense. Exits north, south, and east. East exit is just a walkway, but it leads to the Medina wall. It’s hemmed in on both sides by buildings.”

“Roger.” Knuckles knew they were falling behind Crusty because they had to run about twice as far around the buildings as he did straight across them. If Crusty sprinted down the stairs and out the door, they might miss him. It was going to be close.

“Knuckles, this is Birdseye. We’re out of space. I’ve got to continue on.”