Even when the infrared glasses told them the building was empty, they moved in cautiously, looking for booby traps and signs that someone had been there. They found neither. Ferg divided them into two shifts — him and Conners, Guns and Rankin — and told them they’d catch some Zs, Guns and Rankin first. Their guest took a sleeping bag and curled up in the corner of the basement; Guns and Rankin tied his hands and feet together, then positioned themselves so he’d have to step on one of them to sneak out.
Upstairs, Ferguson swung the antenna up on the sat phone and called home.
“Ferg?” asked a female voice on the other end.
“Actually it’s Joe Stalin,” he told Lauren DiCapri, Corrigan’s relief on the desk. “If I sound a little faint, it’s because it’s damn hot down here in hell, even with the air conditioners cranked.”
“You’re real late checking in. Major Corrigan was worried. I’m supposed to call him at home.”
“Major’s not an honorary title,” Ferguson told her. “You don’t keep it after they kick you out, especially on a dishonorable discharge.”
“How are things going?”
“Shitty. I have some GPS coordinates on a guerrilla camp near here where our source is. I need satellite snaps ASAP. Not just library stuff — I need an 8X,” he added, requesting an up-to-date and detailed satellite image of the target area.
“This is where you think Kiro is?”
“Yeah.”
“I have more information on him.”
“Let me read you the coordinates first,” said Ferg. He actually didn’t “read” them — he’d recorded them using the phone’s GPS gear earlier and merely had to hit a key combination to send them over to her.
“Got ‘em,” she said, as the transmission went through.
“So how come the camp wasn’t in our brief?” he said.
He could hear her checking back through their files to see.
“Um, you’d have to ask Corrigan,” she said. “The notes here are that there was activity and probably a base.”
“Cross out ‘probably.’”
“It’s possible that the Russians don’t know.”
“Right.”
“FSB doesn’t.”
“That I believe.”
“Let me tell you about Kiro,” said Lauren.
“Make it dirty.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“It’s late over here.”
“Kiro is on the FBI wanted list. He’s gotten al-Qaida funding and blew up the Carousel Mall in Syracuse, New York, more than a year ago. We want him. Slott’s already approved an extraction.”
“I think we just got hit with a sunspot,” Ferguson said. “I’m in Chechnya, but you just said something about New York.”
More patiently than Corrigan would have, Lauren explained that Kiro was believed to be Muhammad al Aberrchmof, an Islamic militant thought to have escaped from Afghanistan during the American action there in 2002. He had gone to Pakistan, where he was responsible for a bombing in a Karachi nightclub. Then he had managed to slip into the United States through Canada, masterminding a suicide attack on a Syracuse shopping mall. Following that, he had been spotted in Georgia — the one next to Russia, not Florida — and was now believed to be leading some of the Chechens.
“His friends are even worse. He seems to have met with Allah’s Fist, the people who tried to blow up Independence Hall and got the IRS center in Massachusetts,” said Lauren. “Nasty bunch.”
“How associated?” asked Ferg.
“Not sure. Allah’s Fist hasn’t done anything since the attack on the IRS center. The leader, Samman Bin Saqr, disappeared right after that attack, just fell off the map. He might be dead. In any event, you have a green light to bring Kiro out. They want this guy, Ferg. They want to put him on trial for murder.”
“I can’t clip him?” said Ferg.
The term, taken from the American mafia, was slang for an assassination. It had to be approved by Slott and the CIA director, either from a list of high-level terrorists or on the president’s direct command. An extraction generally applied to a lower level of terrorist or enemy prisoner of war, though there were exceptions.
Three people had been killed in the mall attack, and dozens wounded. Ferguson shook his head — that ought to be enough to have the bastard’s heart cut out, no questions asked.
Five hundred people had been killed or wounded in the IRS attack. Was that what it took?
“They really want him, Ferg. They want a scalp. We don’t have a positive connection,” Lauren added. “But the people at the NSA have a voice match that we think is good, and there’s one photo. We’ll upload them.”
“The Russians know who he is?” Ferguson asked.
“Not as far as we know.”
“We’re going to tell them?”
“Not until you bring him home. Slott has been on Corrigan’s back since we made the connection. He wanted to call you right away. Corrigan held him off.”
Ferg held the phone down and took a few steps along the front of the building, scanning in the distance of the road. The team was getting a little ragged; they’d been out in the field for about two weeks.
If Kiro really was Aberrchmof, he ought to be grabbed.
Then castrated, burned, and pissed on.
He put the phone back to his ear.
“Ferg?”
“Yeah, I’m here, Beautiful.”
“Colonel Van Buren has already been alerted.”
“OK,” said Ferg, even though he knew an all-out assault on the fortress would be out of the question, even if they were absolutely sure Kiro was there. Too many Russian troops were nearby, ready to gum up the works. They’d either have to get the Russians in on the game or find a way to finesse it. “I’ll get with him,” he told her.
“You need anything else?”
“Well my inflatable doll sprang a leak last night.”
“Very funny.” She killed the connection.
10
Rankin spotted it, staring at the images upside down.
“They run out that tunnel, then pick up the vehicle there,” he said, pointing at the laptop screen. “You can see the wheel in the hide.” Everybody squinted over the screen.
“So we knock on the front door, they run out the back?” said Ferguson.
Rankin snorted. “Yeah, right. They could take two companies on before they felt the heat. Even then, you don’t have armor, you’re not getting in.”
“What do you think, Dad?” Ferg asked Conners.
“Got to figure they have at least one guy inside the cave at all times,” he said, pointing at the escape route. “I have to tell you, I don’t quite see the cave, let alone the tire or even the hide Skip’s talking about.”
“It’s there,” said Rankin.
“I’m not arguing with you. I just have older eyes.” Conners smiled at him. Rankin reminded him of a racehorse that had been shot up with amphetamines for a race, always jittery, sensitive to the touch. Great in the race, but hell before and after. “Be booby traps, probably twists and turns. You’d never get in that way.”
