Force doesn’t exactly spring to mind. Except for pilots, that is, and you don’t seem to fit the profile.”
He emitted a short, barking laugh. “Can’t argue with that. You’ve got a sharp eye, missy.”
Missy? She looked out the rain-streaked window, shrugging it off. She didn’t think he was being intentionally condescending, and she didn’t want to get off to a bad start. She decided to change the subject. “So what were you saying about the Shahikot? Where is that, anyway?”
“Afghanistan,” Bennett replied. He lifted a cup of coffee from between the seats and showed it to her, raising his eyebrows. She shook her head. He shrugged and peeled off the lid, taking a long sip.
“When were you there?” Naomi pressed.
“In 2002. You remember Operation Anaconda?”
“Vaguely. That was a while ago.” She hesitated. “You said Ryan was there?”
Bennett nodded and laughed without turning around. “Yeah, and it’s a good thing he was, too. The man saved our asses.”
She leaned forward in her seat, suddenly interested. “What happened?”
He turned to face her. “Well, you have to know a little about what was happening at the time. It was less than a year after 9/11, four months after the fall of the Taliban. Six weeks after we missed bin Laden in Tora Bora, the decision was made to sweep into the Shahikot Valley in eastern Afghanistan. Our intelligence indicated a large number of al-Qaeda fighters were holed up in the area, including a number of HVTs.”
Catching her confused expression, Bennett explained. “High-value targets. Senior al-Qaeda leaders. Anyway, Anaconda was a huge endeavor, involving more than two thousand soldiers from 10th Mountain and the 101st Airborne. The Rangers were in on it, too, along with a bunch of SF. The big push was to come on March second. Two days beforehand, reconnaissance units were sent in to the valley to set up observation posts, what we called OPs.”
“And you were in one of those units?”
He nodded. “Mako 31. Our goal was to reach what we called the Finger — a ridgeline extending into the southern half of the valley, eleven thousand feet of razor-sharp rock. It was a two-day, seven-mile climb through knee-deep snow just to get to the top, but when we did, we got the surprise of a lifetime. Two men on a DShK machine gun, Soviet-made, with more than two thousand rounds. They had everything: a heated tent, fuel, food, plenty of small arms. They were in perfect position to ambush the Chinooks coming through the next day. So we called it in to AFO — that’s Advanced Force Operations — and the decision was made to take them out.”
“But something went wrong?”
“It was a complete disaster,” Bennett said cheerfully. “There were six men in Mako 31: three guys from SEAL Team 6, one of whom was the commander, a Navy explosives expert, Kealey, and me. Everyone knew Kealey was with the Agency, but he’d been in-country from the start, so when he asked to come along, no one really complained. One guy threw up a few objections, but Kealey was in tight with the head of AFO, a guy he knew from Delta, so he got the okay. His presence in the Shahikot was never recorded.”
Bennett paused to take another sip of coffee. “Anyway, the commander sent the other two SEALs over the ridge to take a closer look. Everything went fine. Then, just after four a.m., one of the fighters went looking for a place to piss, and he stumbled onto our position. He ran back to the tent, screaming his head off. The two SEALs on watch got over the ridge and fired on the enemy encampment, but their weapons jammed after the first couple of rounds. It was just one of those things. They cleared them as fast as they could, but the bad guys were already alerted. They pulled the tarp off the DShK and started to turn it around, but Kealey shot the guy loading the gun, then the gunner himself. He caught a bullet himself for his trouble.”
“Unbelievable,” Naomi breathed. She looked out the window. Ryan was still on the phone, his back to the Range Rover. “What happened then?”
“The SEALs managed to clear their weapons and started to engage. The commander grabbed Kealey and pulled him to cover while I called in our air support. The gunners on board laced the mountain with 105mm rounds. There wasn’t much left of the enemy when it was over, I can tell you that.”
“And Ryan?”
“He let one of the SEALs patch him up, but he refused an evac. He hung on for the duration.” Bennett fell silent for a moment, then let out a laugh. “You know the funny thing?”
“What’s that?” Naomi asked.
“The only guy who objected to Kealey joining Mako 31 was an army colonel, the commander of Task Force Rakkasan. He was scheduled to be on board the lead Chinook coming through the pass the very next day. If we hadn’t taken out that machine gun, he probably would have been shot to pieces, along with most of his men.”
Naomi fell back in her seat, taking it in. It was an amazing story, but before she could consider it further, Ryan was back at the vehicle, pulling open the front door. He handed the phone to Bennett as he climbed in. Looking between them, he seemed to sense that something had transpired while he was out of the vehicle, but he let it pass. “Let’s go.”
The drive into the city took forty minutes; the traffic slowed to a near halt on the A111. Kealey used the time to question Bennett thoroughly, and what he learned was not encouraging. The former Air Force sergeant didn’t have the rank to allocate resources, and his other responsibilities had kept him occupied for most of the day, which meant that Ruhmann’s residence in Berlin had gone unwatched for hours on end. The lack of surveillance prompted Kealey to ask the obvious question.
“How do you even know he’s there?”
“I checked three times this afternoon,” Bennett replied. “The name he’s been using in Berlin — Walter Schauble — is listed on the buzzer at the front door. Ruhmann has the penthouse, and the lights have been on all day. I also ran a discreet check through the TUV… That’s the agency that carries out safety inspections for vehicles registered in Germany. Under the Schauble identity, Ruhmann owns a Mercedes CLK coupe. The car wasn’t parked in the street the first time I looked, but it was there when I passed the apartment later.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing,” Kealey said. “Maybe he has an assistant. Ruhmann might not even be in the country.”
“If that’s the case, wouldn’t the assistant be traveling with him?” Naomi put in.
“Maybe…” Kealey fell silent, thinking it through. “We’ll just have to look and see.”
Bennett swung the Range Rover onto the Friedrichstrasse and followed it down to the river. Even seen through the curtains of rain, the black water shone with multicolored lights, most of which spilled from the immense blocks of flats on the south bank. A few houseboats were moored near the Reichstag, where the Luisenstrasse crossed the Spree. To their left, a towering pinnacle of light marked the TV Tower in the Alexanderplatz. Naomi gazed through her window, admiring the view for as long as possible. Then Bennett turned onto a narrow street just south of the river, and the squat buildings looming over the sidewalk replaced the luminous skyline. A few seconds later the vehicle started to slow.
“That’s it,” the ops officer said. They followed his gaze immediately.
“Doesn’t look like much,” Kealey remarked. “Ruhmann knows how to keep a low profile.”
“Yeah, he’s smarter than most of his peers,” Bennett agreed. He started to put his foot on the brake, but Kealey said, “No, keep going to the end of the street. We’ll park there.”
Bennett nodded. As they approached the intersection, he found a spot near the curb and pulled in.
“What do you have for weapons?” Kealey asked.
Bennett pulled back his jacket to reveal the butt of a Browning Hi-Power. Then he turned and said, “See those cases next to you, Kharmai? Hand one of them up, will you?”
She did as he asked. Following Kealey’s lead, she opened the other. It contained a field-stripped Beretta Tomcat. She stared at the pieces for a long moment, trying to remember the weaponry course she’d taken at Camp Peary five years earlier. It took her two minutes longer than necessary, but she finally managed to put the. 32 caliber pistol together. Dry firing it once, she heard a satisfying click. Then she slipped a 7-round magazine into the butt and chambered a round.
The other case contained a Sig P229, the standard-issue weapon of the U.S. Secret Service. This one happened to be chambered for 9mm rounds. Kharmai paused to watch Kealey put the weapon together. She had handed him a case at random, and she couldn’t help but wonder what his reaction would have been if he had ended up with the smaller gun. She didn’t think he’d care that much, but she knew that men could be surprisingly superficial about such things.
Bennett looked uneasy. “You know, I’m not supposed to have those weapons in-country. They’re not
