RAHAB.”
A long pause. “Permission granted. Find out what’s going on. And make it short.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Roger, FULLBACK. You stay and provide cover for BIRDMASTER. Tell SWITCHBLADE to join me. We will regroup on your position.”
“Copy that, sir.”
Major Hossein reached up and grasped the man beside him by the shoulder. “The Americans are moving. They will be spread out. We need to strike before they can regroup.”
The soldier nodded. Hossein flicked the safety off the Kalishnikov assault rifle he carried. “Here’s what I want you to do.”
“Harry wants you to join him,” Hamid stated calmly as Davood came up beside him. The young Iranian looked strange in the green glow of his night vision. “Immediately.”
Davood looked back toward the cave where he had placed Tancretti, its mouth hidden in the shadows of night.
“How is he?” Hamid asked.
“Not good. He needs an IV, but,” Davood gestured helplessly toward the wreckage of the Huey, “we don’t have any med supplies left.” His shoulders slumped in discouragement.
“Let Allah be your strength, my brother. Look to Him and place your faith in His power.” Hamid clapped his fellow agent on the back. “May He go with you. I will look after BIRDMASTER.”
Davood nodded, unholstering the Beretta from his hip as he moved toward the cliff path. Hamid watched him go…
“Change of course, Carol,” Ron Carter announced, coming around the edge of the cubicles with a sheaf of printouts in his hand. “I need you in the Tehran intranet, and I need you in there yesterday.”
Carol Chambers looked up from her workstation, frowning at the head analyst. “Do you know the kind of time that will take?”
“Of course I do,” Carter shot back, cheerfully sweeping a space clear on her desk to deposit the printouts. “That’s why you’ve got two hours instead of one.”
Carol stared after him in disbelief as he disappeared.
She turned back her terminal, reminding herself for the hundredth time that she should have joined the NSA. The world’s biggest signals intelligence gatherer would have had the manpower to pull off what Carter wanted. Not just the manpower, but the processing power, which was more important. The computers that the Clandestine Service had control over, the only ones she was permitted to access for TALON, just didn’t measure up to the huge Crays.
Which once again begged the question. Why
Carol sighed and reached back, sweeping her hair into a tight ponytail. Time to get to work.
Shoulder-length when worn down, her hair was a golden brown, dirty blond, as it was often called.
A smile crept across her face. Dirty, maybe, but not dumb. She hadn’t graduated from MIT at the top of her class, but she’d been a long way from the bottom. Yeah, forget the CIA and NSA, with her grades and
The familiar pulsing hum of the door scanner reached her ears and Carol looked up to see the figure of her father step onto the floor of the operations center.
His presence in the nerve center of the Clandestine Service was rare enough to be the rough equivalent of a divine visitation, and to have it happen twice in one night…
It had always been that way, ever since she’d been a little girl. Memories of those early days were few and distant, hazy shadows, a mirage to chase in one’s dreams. Nothing tangible. She only remembered the absence, the lack. A godlike father figure, distant, unapproachable. Someone whose very existence had to be accepted on faith. In many ways, God was the more approachable of the two.
Yet, deep down, she knew that he was the reason she was here and not a corporate firm. God had given her the strength to forgive the past and despite the awkwardness of their current relationship, she couldn’t have lived without it.
A voice interrupted her thoughts and she looked up to see their object standing before her.
“Good evening, Carol,” David Lay greeted softly, uncertainty in his tones. She looked into his eyes and saw the pain there. Whether grief for the unrecoverable past or the men he had lost this night, she had no way of knowing.
“I need you and Carter in Conference Room #2. Five minutes.”
And then he was gone as quick as he had arrived. As it always had been…
Darkness surrounded him, enrobing him in its folds. Tancretti tried to move again, searing pain shooting through him. His legs were broken. He was helpless.
It wasn’t a familiar situation for the Air Force colonel. He had always been the one in charge, controlling his actions. Guiding his destiny.
He nearly blacked out again, biting his lip hard to keep from crying out. The metallic taste of blood seeped into his mouth, oozing from a cut lip.
From above him, around him, he could hear the sound of small-arms fire, the sound of men selling their lives as dearly as possible. He fumbled desperately for the service automatic at his belt, rolling over on one side to extract it from its holster. Fear seemed to rise in his throat, fear he had tried to suppress ever since the CIA agent had left. Ever since he had been alone.
The Beretta was a comforting bulk in his hand, fifteen 9mm rounds making him just as effective as any man with both his legs under him. Just as effective.
Suddenly, a figure loomed out of the darkness and Tancretti brought the pistol up in both hands, his voice trembling as he cried out a challenge.
“Easy,” the figure replied. English.
Relief washed over the colonel like a tidal wave. He couldn’t see the face in the darkness, but it must be one of the CIA men. He was saved.
The figure shifted and in that movement, Tancretti could see the gleam of a knife blade. He screamed and tried to roll away, knowing his legs could not move him. Knowing he was going to die. His fingers pressed the trigger reflexively, a single wild shot filling the cave with its echo.
It was too late. It changed nothing. His target moved as he fired, fingers reaching down to grasp the wrist of his gun hand.
The knife swung down in its long, curving arc, slicing across his throat. And it was over. All over…
