Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors) Read online

  An amused smile crossed Thomas’s face. “The way I understood the story, it’s her backdoor. Nobody asked too many questions. If I can get in, the minute Harry makes a purchase—we’ve got him.”

  “That might be awhile.”

  Thomas looked up at Tex, his friend’s face shifting in and out of focus. He blinked, fighting against fatigue and the alcohol still coursing through his bloodstream. “Why?”

  “He cleared out all his cash.”

  “Great,” Thomas whispered, burying his head in his hands. He should have realized…

  “How much?”

  “Judging by the size of the security box—by the likely denomination—I’d say 10k. Minimum. He’s not going to get within ten klicks of an airport, and that’s about the only place he’d use plastic.”

  Time to go to Plan B. The only question: what was that?

  5:02 A.M.

  The SUV

  “So, what are we doing?”

  Brushing her hair back out of her eyes, Carol looked up from the maps she had been studying under the glow of the dome light. “We’re near Orkney Springs. Another ten miles and we’ll be in West Virginia.” She looked out at the darkness surrounding the vehicle and switched the light off. “When were you going to tell me the plan?”

  When? He shifted the Excursion into gear and got back on the road.

  “I believe I mentioned Samuel Han.”

  “You did.”

  Harry cleared his throat, focusing briefly on the task at hand. The back roads hadn’t been treated—the state of Virginia, like just about every state in the union, had been running short of money for years. Anymore, it took a blizzard to get any salt spread on the highways before Christmas.

  Back roads? Forget about it.

  “Sammy was one of the best operators I ever worked with,” he said after a moment. “Rock-solid. He’d married a girl by the name of Sherri from Virginia Beach, had a couple kids—twin boys. They’d gotten married when he was still at Little Creek, so she knew the score. Or thought she did.”

  He could feel her eyes on him as he paused. “He was different…well, to be blunt—no one wears their wedding band on an op. A lot of guys use that as an excuse to sleep around when they’re overseas. Not Sammy—theirs was a love story. American dream.”

  “Was?” Harry could feel the pain in her question. A survivor’s pain.

  “Yeah. There’s always a was. Sherri was used to him going off in the middle of the night—but she never got used to the accelerated op tempo of the Special Activities Division. Sammy was gone more than he was home. A lot of women would have turned around and left right then, but she stuck it out.”

  The Excursion’s tires fishtailed slightly in wet, slushy snow and Harry turned his attention back to the road. “We’re coming up to a fork—right or left?”

  “Left,” she responded, consulting the map in her hand.

  “Sammy was deployed when it happened,” Harry continued, swinging the SUV onto the left fork of the road. “His son Lee was playing ball in the street near their house in Norfolk when he was struck by a car. Turned out to be an old fellow in his mid-eighties, got confused—hit the gas instead of the brakes. We were in the Yemeni desert when I got the call. Had to make the choice of whether to tell him.”

  “You didn’t, did you?” she asked when he hesitated.

  “A distracted operator is a dead operator,” Harry replied calmly. “We’d been deep black for three weeks—I had two choices: tell Sammy and abort the mission—or see it through.”

  “Three,” Carol interjected, an icy chill to her voice.

  “What?”

  “You had a third option—tell Han and trust him to keep his mind on the mission.”

  Harry looked out the SUV’s window, white snow drifting down against the darkness of the Appalachian night. Pine trees heavy with snow flashed past in the glare of the headlights.

  “That wasn’t on the table,” he said finally. “People speak of trust as if were some sort of virtue. It’s not—it’s probably the greatest—the most seductive, of all vices. Trust kills.”

  5:17 A.M.

  The West Virginia border

  Boredom. That was the worst part of the job. Deputy Sanchez hefted the twelve-gauge shotgun in his hand and moved to the front of the patrol car.

  He’d joined the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Department three years before, on a whim. At the time, he’d been laid off from his construction job—and the government was about the only entity hiring. It had to be more exciting than driving a bulldozer.

  Cradling the Mossberg under the crook of his arm, he blew steam on his hands and chuckled to himself. Exciting.

  Yeah, right. He’d fired his department-issued Glock in the line of duty twice in three years. Didn’t even take it to the range that much anymore.

  A vehicle materialized out of the snowy night without warning, the lights of a big Ford Excursion spotlighting the deputy.

  The fourth vehicle of a largely uneventful night. Sanchez walked out into the middle of the night, Wilkes moving into position behind him as he waved the SUV to a halt.

  The driver’s side window rolled down as Sanchez approached.

  “Deputy Sanchez, Shenandoah County Sheriffs’ Department. License and registration, sir,” the deputy requested, addressing the only occupant of the Excursion, a man who looked to be in his mid-forties.

  The profile of his face…Sanchez looked down at the crumpled printout in his hand. The picture of Nichols hadn’t been that good to begin with, but now the falling snow had blurred the photocopy. They weren’t allowed to print in color anymore, not with the budget cuts.

  “Sure thing,” the SUV’s driver responded, reaching slowly into the glove compartment. “Out looking for the spy?”

  Sanchez stiffened. “Why?”

  The driver chuckled, handing out his paperwork through the window. “Else this is one heavily armed sobriety checkpoint. I watched the whole thing on CNN last night, some crazy stuff goin’ on, right?”

  “Sure is,” the deputy responded, looking carefully at the photo on the driver’s license. Robert Stephenson.

  “You’re from New York?”

  “At the moment,” Harry replied, looking the Hispanic deputy in the eye. “My wife moved down for her work a month back—I’ll be here as soon as I can find a job.”

  The deputy handed back his license and papers with a snort. “This is a bad time to be finding one of those. What’s your wife do?”

  It seemed like a casual question, but Harry could see the glint there. Not bad. “She’s a private nurse. Her patient—used to be a big shot with Apple—was recommended to get out of the city—smog, pollution, all that. So he moved down here.”

  A nod. “And what brings you out on the roads at this time of night, Mr. Stephenson?”

  “Haven’t seen her in twenty-eight days, bro,” Harry spread his hands. “No sense stopping for the night when she’s right over the mountain. I’ve been lonely.”

  “And frustrated,” came the deputy’s comment, along with a sideways grin.

  Harry laughed. “Yeah, that too.”

  The grin vanished as quickly as it had come. “I’d like you to step out of the vehicle, Mr. Stephenson. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  There was no time to wonder what had triggered the command. Harry reached low and unbuckled his seat belt, pushing open the door of the Excursion. It was a two-man roadblock, the second deputy hustling toward them now, an AR-15 clutched in his gloved hands.

  The way he held the carbine told Harry everything he needed to know. The deputy didn’t know how to use it. Might be good, might be bad.

  “Keep him covered, Wilkes.”

  His gaze swept south, taking in his surroundings in a single glance just before the first deputy turned him around against the hood of the SUV and began frisking him.

  There were lights there to the south, the lights of a house shining through the snow. Probably not a hundred yards o
ff the road. Close enough to hear if shots were fired.

  Harry felt the deputy’s hands run up his body, underneath his jacket, and he smiled, thankful he had given the 1911 to Carol. Now if she’d just remember what he’d told her—stay away…

  “He’s clean,” he heard the deputy announce, taking a step back. “If you’ll give us your keys, I’ll take a look in the back, Mr. Stephenson.”

  So many years, so many times in the field, but Harry could feel his body tense at the question. The point where the lies broke down. The guns—well, the guns were securely hidden away in the compartment custom-built into the false floor of the Excursion. But the MREs, the other supplies—would raise too many questions. Now or never.

  “Keys are in the ignition,” he gestured, taking the opportunity for one last fix of the men’s positions. The man called Sanchez was about four feet to his left, near the open door of the SUV—he would be the one to go for the keys.

  The second deputy was about three feet behind him, carelessly close, the AR-15 held loosely in both hands. If he was following his training, the safety was still on.

  Men like him knew nothing but their training.

  Lowering the shotgun, Sanchez leaned his upper body into the Excursion, his fingers groping the ignition area for the missing keys. It was at that moment that Harry struck, throwing his body weight against the open door.

  The driver’s side door of the Excursion had been armored to withstand the impact of 7.62mm rifle rounds. What resulted was a heavy door swinging shut across Sanchez’s lower legs, pinning him. A scream of pain and surprise rent the night.

  Harry pivoted in the snow, his hand coming up as the second deputy took a step backward, his fingers fumbling with the safety of the AR-15.

  Harry’s hand connected with Wilkes’ throat, a brutal edge-of-hand blow that sent him reeling.

  The deputy collapsed into the snow, clutching at his crushed vocal cords. Dropping to one knee beside him, Harry jerked the Glock 19 from Wilkes’ retention holster, bringing it up and pulling back the slide to chamber a round.

  Movement out of the corner of his eye and Harry pressed the Glock’s barrel against the temple of the prone, gasping deputy. He looked up to see Sanchez limping toward him, the Mossberg leveled. The muzzle of the twelve-gauge gaped large as the mouth of a cannon, a yawning hole dark as the night.

  “Another step and I put a bullet through his brain,” Harry announced calmly, looking up at Sanchez. The deputy stopped stock-still, the shotgun wavering in his hands. He was breathing heavily, great gasps of steam escaping his lips and drifting off into the darkness. The red and blue lights of the patrol cars continued to flash across the snow, adding a surreal aspect to the scene.

  “You—you wouldn’t,” he said finally, his voice trembling. “You wouldn’t kill a cop.”

  Harry’s eyes never changed, his lips forming into a cold, hard smile. “Believe that if you want to—you can even tell his widow the same thing. I’ve spent fifteen years of my life killing…what’s one more body?”

  “You’re never gonna make it out of here alive,” Sanchez insisted, raising the shotgun to his shoulder once again. Harry could see his hands shaking, could see the uncertainty written across his face. The emotional anguish of a man who didn’t know if he could pull the trigger.

  “This isn’t a movie, son,” Harry said, extending his left hand. “So, don’t try to be a hero. Nobody needs to die here. Just lay down the gun—everyone goes home.”

  A long moment passed, the deputy caught in torturous indecision. Finally Sanchez shifted the Mossberg into his left hand and threw it into the snow. “You win.”

  Harry rose, the Glock in his hand now aimed at Sanchez’s heart. “Turn around.”

  4:28 A.M. Central Time

  An apartment

  Dearborn, Michigan

  Tarik rose before the dawn, before the call to fajr, morning prayer, had rung out over the city.

  A recording, yes—but a beautiful sound, and one increasingly common in this land.

  A quiet smile crossed the Pakistani’s face, a light flickering for a brief moment in those dreaming eyes. Such was the will of Allah. He walked over to the window and opened the venetian blinds, looking out over the city, lights sparkling in the darkness. Dar el Harb.

  The house of war.

  His laptop was open on the small table beside his bed, a website he had visited the previous night still onscreen.

  The face of a woman stared back at him, boldly, without shame—a woman in her fifties, her naked face framed by brown hair. United States Representative Laura Gilpin, Texas, read the caption beneath her picture.

  He remembered the face. He would always remember it, distorted in anger behind a bank of microphones. She had led the opposition against his release from Guantanamo, a self-proclaimed crusader. So typical of the Americans, using words without beginning to comprehend their meaning.

  Tarik smiled and reached for the mouse, double-clicking on the Events button on her webpage and scrolling down until he reached the bottom. December 25th—eleven days away. Only eleven days. The Pakistani leaned back in his chair, falling into meditation as the words of the sura flowed through his mind.

  Do they feel secure from the coming against them? Of the covering veil. The wrath of God. Or of the coming against them—of the Hour. Suddenly while they perceive it not?

  5:31 A.M. Eastern Time

  Crooked Run RD

  The Virginia-West Virginia border

  Harry had just finished loading the unconscious and zip-cuffed bodies of the deputies into the back seat of the patrol car when he sensed movement, a sound in the snow behind him.

  He unceremoniously dropped the body of Deputy Sanchez onto the backseat, the Glock coming up level in both hands as he turned, aimed toward the threat.

  Carol. He lowered the gun, taking his finger off the trigger. “I thought I told you to circle through the trees and wait for me down the road.”

  She brushed a falling snowflake off her sleeve, never taking her eyes off his face as she moved closer. “You were also going to lie your way through. What went wrong?”

  “They asked too many questions.” He closed the rear door of the patrol car. “We need to get out of here—this place is going to be swarming with Bureau types once they fail to report back in. And they’re going to have our license number.”

  Carol looked at him. “Not necessarily.”

  Harry shook his head, returning the Glock to the inside of his jacket. “They run the tags, their search is logged by the database. It’s SOP.”

  Her lips parted in the first real smile he had seen from her since the beginning of the nightmare. “It is standard operating procedure—that doesn’t mean the database can’t be hacked. If I can switch the numbers before the search is flagged…”

  It was tempting—almost too tempting. “We don’t have the time to run a hack,” he said finally. “Sorry.”

  She took a step closer, her eyes burning into him with a formidable intensity. “I can do this. Five minutes.”

  A long moment passed before he responded, an answering smile passing across his face. He reached out, putting a hand on her arm as he moved on past, to take up an overlook position down the road. “Knock yourself out.”

  6:42 A.M.

  NCS Operations Center

  Langley, Virginia

  The op-center was buzzing when Danny Lasker came through the door, tucking his keycard back into the pocket of his shirt.

  It wasn’t like the place ever slept—the Clandestine Service maintained a skeleton crew of comm specialists and analysts 24/7—but this morning was different.

  “Mornin’, Ron,” Lasker greeted as he passed the analyst’s cubicle. A grunt served as his reply. He dropped his coat over the back of his own desk chair before throwing a second glance at Carter.

  Blue dress shirt, stained with sweat. Black pants that weren’t on speaking terms with a crease. The same tie, loosened at the neck, red and green
Christmas ornaments dancing down its length.

  His gaze swept over Carter’s workstation. A large thermos of coffee sat beside the LCD monitor on one side—a decimated box of bagels on the other. “You didn’t go home last night, did you?”

  A shake of the head. “Take a look at this.”

  Lasker gave himself a push, sending his desk chair rolling across the floor to Carter’s side. “What’s going on?”

  The analyst opened a browser window, bringing a picture of Harry Nichols onto the screen. An old picture, surveillance-camera quality. “This is what went out to the Bureau and local law enforcement yesterday. It’s been altered.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Carter let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m a photoanalyst—of course I’m sure. Someone deliberately tampered with the picture before it was sent out.”

  “Who had access?”

  “That’s what I can’t tell—they clearly wanted to make the Bureau’s job tougher.” Carter’s face hardened, anger creeping into his bloodshot eyes. “That’s not the only thing. Somebody’s messin’ with us, Danny.”

  A couple clicks and another picture came onto the screen. “What do you make of this?”

  The image was clearly of the underside of a man’s arm. A dead man’s arm.

  “A friend of mine at the Bureau sent these over last night. Morgue snapshots of the two Russian KIAs from the highway yesterday.” As Lasker watched, Ron used his mouse to draw a red circle around a small white patch of scar tissue.

  “Looks like someone tried to have laser tattoo removal,” Danny observed, leaning back in his chair. “Old girlfriend of mine had a dragon taken off her lower back—looked just like that.”

  Another time, Carter might have made a joke about it, might have given him a hard time. Not this morning. “Do you know what this is—it’s Cyrillic.”

  “So? The Bureau said they were Russkies.”

  An exasperated curse escaped Carter’s lips. “That’s not the point—these are the Cyrillic letters for AB. The other man has an O on the underside of his arm.”