“Do you want him terminated?”
“Yes, Tyra, I do.”
“Sir, you know the procedure. Wet work on foreign soil requires instructions in writing. I need a presidential order.”
“You’ve got it. Now if you can’t terminate Kumar, at least get the trial delayed. All we need is a couple of days. We can put enough pressure on Canada to turn him over. There are a thousand ways to delay a trial, Tyra. You can off that pesky lawyer, Wittenberg, if you want. That would guarantee a continuance.”
“No worries, sir. After some of the stuff we’ve done, none of this is particularly complicated.”
“Take a separate plane from Dan and his lawyers and the State Department guys. Get a team of wet work specialists from the CIA. Take whatever weapons you need and put them in diplomatic bags. Use our consulate in Vancouver as your base of operations. They have plenty of backup firepower there if you need it.”
“You want me to go now, sir?”
“Yes I do, Tyra. If the Allegro Star was headed west, we must assume Kumar was dropped off somewhere in BC. They’re drug smugglers and they used that mine that Leon Lestage owned as a point of entry into the US. That means they’ve got to know every last nook and cranny of the shoreline that can be used as a point of entry into BC. They’ve found some slippery way in and Kumar is probably in Vancouver. The only reason he’s there is because he’s had some ridiculous attack of conscience and wants to tell the world what he knows. That just simply can’t happen. Let Dan and his lawyers do what they do. You do what you do, okay?”
“You can count on me, Matt. You always can.” She kept her foot on his.
Later that day, on an unmarked Cessna Citation X, traveling from Washington, DC, to Vancouver, BC, Tyra showed her two senior operators the presidential order.
“Kumar Hanaman and Hamilton Turbee are terrorists who are seeking to destabilize our strategic position in Afghanistan in the middle of a war.
They must not be permitted to testify in the Leon Lestage trial. They must be terminated with extreme prejudice. Should this prove impossible, the trial of Mr. Lestage must not be permitted to proceed. You are to do whatever is necessary to see that this trial does not go forward. You will be protected in these actions by the president of the United States. If Zak Goldberg, Richard Lawrence, or George Lexia interfere, they are to be terminated. Lestage’s lawyer, Dana Wittenberg, should be terminated. Those are the orders, gentlemen. When this job is done, you will be taken out of the country and back to Washington.”
Ron was the older of the two. “I don’t get this. I knew Zak. He died. I remember the announcement. He was undercover in Afghanistan and he was captured, tortured, and killed. The guy was an awesome warrior. A hero. And I knew Lawrence. He’s probably mainlining heroin in some DC slum. He got booted out of the Navy for a drug and alcohol issues. Then he got booted out of the CIA for pretty much the same reason. The guy is not a threat for anyone. What the hell is going on here?”
Tyra spoke softly, almost hissing. “Orders are orders, Ron. These come from the chief.”
Ron ignored the response. “And,” he continued, “I don’t like the last bit. Dana Wittenberg is a Canadian citizen. She’s in the middle of running that Leon Lestage trial. This could turn into one hell of an international incident and I don’t care what the president says, we will all have targets on our backs.”
“We’re the little people, Ron,” replied Tyra. “We need to terminate these individuals. These are orders from our commander in chief. We do what we need to do. Then we flee the country. We are servants of the state and the state will look after us.”
Ron regarded Tyra closely. “They say you’ve got a smart head on you. You should know that the state looks after itself first, and if we are to be sacrificed for the greater good, the state would not hesitate.” Tyra glared at him but did not respond.
42
Jimmy had rolled himself a gigantic joint of BC’s finest bud and poured a large crystal glass of Dom Perignon. He’d put the Allegro Star on autopilot, and it was traveling at a steady fifty knots west toward Singapore. Now that Kumar and the two Americans had been dropped off in Vancouver Harbor, he could relax. The risk of interdiction was low, and the fee for the dangerous trip was spectacular. Kumar had provided him with access particulars to an account at the Union Bank of Switzerland with, Kumar had said, a balance of slightly more than five million euros. This was enough to perpetuate his grand lifestyle for another year or two. With the funds being at UBS, there were no messy laundering issues. Perhaps he would buy a waterfront estate in southern France, or a penthouse in one of Vancouver’s stunning forty-floor glass-and-steel high-rises. Perhaps he would trade his yacht, anchored in Miami, a measly fifty-footer, for something a little more upscale, maybe a sixty-footer. Seventy even.
He was pleasantly floating in an endorphin-induced chain of free-associated pleasures when a loud, intermittent beeping intruded his world. Instantly snapped to sobriety, he looked at the monitors in front of him. A torpedo was heading toward him at over two hundred knots. Endorphins turned to cortisol in seconds. He manually took over the controls, slammed the steering hard to starboard, and increased the speed of the Allegro Star to its maximum of sixty-eight knots. The torpedo followed the maneuver and the distance between them closed to five hundred yards. He jinked hard
