Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors) Read online

  Ellsworth was speaking again and Harry raised his head to face the inspector general.

  “Following the defection of Hamid Zakiri from Alpha Team, you were ordered to bring him in for interrogation. Is that correct?”

  “You were ordered to take me alive, weren’t you?”

  The voice of a dead man, reaching back from beyond the grave. He could still see the face, there in the darkness of the Masjid al-Marwani, beneath the Temple Mount. The face of a dying friend. The face of a traitor…

  “Did you receive such an order?” Ellsworth repeated, testy at the delay. It wasn’t typically the responsibility of the inspector general to perform an interrogation like this himself, but he had an ax to grind.

  “Yes,” Harry replied, his eyes locking with Ellsworth’s in a cold, icy stare.

  A nod. “And you chose to disregard that order. Following his murder of your fellow team member, Davood Sarami, you wanted to take upon yourself the role of executioner, didn’t you?”

  “He screamed when I shot him, Harry. I enjoyed myself…”

  A involuntary shudder rippled through Harry’s body and he looked away. Even now, two months later, he could still feel the anger, the rage burning through him. Executioner…

  Yes, that much was true. He could still remember the sneer in Hamid’s eyes as he lay there helpless, awaiting the final bullet. The big Colt recoiling into his hand. Every moment, playing endlessly through his mind.

  “No,” he replied, mastering his emotions with an effort. “Zakiri’s death was unavoidable, the inevitable consequence of close quarters combat. If I could have aimed to wound, I would have. He died with a loaded weapon in his hand.”

  Darkness. Standing over his friend there in the darkened prayer hall of the masjid. No, not his friend—the traitor, he reminded himself, his mind still struggling with the realization.

  A burst of submachine gun fire had broken Hamid’s pelvis and he’d been lying there helpless when Harry had reached him. A weapon in his hand?

  He’d been struggling to reach his Glock. Harry had kicked it away from him. Disarmed…

  “Is that the way it happened?” Ellsworth asked, skepticism clearly visible in his eyes. Harry sensed the warning bells—emotion was filtering through into the machine results. His emotion. Control. “Let me tell you what I think, Mr. Nichols. I think it was deliberate—I think you wanted to kill him.”

  Harry’s head came up with a jerk, his eyes flashing daggers at the bureaucrat. “Wanted to? Wanted to?” he demanded, his voice barely above the level of a hiss. “He was my friend.”

  Even as the words left his mouth, he saw his mistake. A neatly-laid trap, he realized with a detached sense of emotion. Or the lack thereof. Ellsworth was smarter than he looked.

  “That’s right,” Ellsworth responded, “he was your friend, wasn’t he? Your recruit, too, if my memory serves me. You brought him into the Agency, vouched for him. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me, Nichols, perhaps there is another reason you killed him?”

  6:18 A.M.

  Lay’s residence

  Fairfax, Virginia

  The sound of the SUV engine starting struck David Lay’s ears just as he finished tying his necktie. Undoubtedly Ramirez had finished his search for explosives. That was part of the morning routine, along with the continually-varied route to work.

  Lay grimaced, adjusting his collar. It was probably paranoia. No CIA director had ever been assassinated. No one had ever even bothered to try. No matter, he didn’t plan to be the first. And with the enemies he had made in this past month…

  His gaze fell to the framed photograph on his nightstand. The face of a young woman in her late twenties stared back at him, a smile dancing in those azure-blue eyes. She had her mother’s smile.

  To have his daughter Carol back in his life—after well over twenty years of separation. It was a blessing beyond anything that he deserved. His wife had left him just weeks after Carol’s fourth birthday, tired of the long absences and lonely nights. He still couldn’t find it in himself to blame her.

  He’d been an up-and-coming young CIA field officer in those days, the waning years of the Cold War. Young and brash. Patriotic. Or maybe just ambitious. He still didn’t know. All he knew was that it had left his family in ruins.

  Even his daughter no longer carried his name, despite their recent reconciliation. And his wife was dead, stolen away by breast cancer. There were times that forgiveness was unobtainable.

  A knock on the door disturbed his thoughts. Ramirez’s voice. “Think it’s time to roll, sir. Looks like the traffic could be interesting this morning…”

  6:27 A.M.

  National Clandestine Service(NCS) Operations Center

  Langley, Virginia

  Sometimes the most frustrating thing about betrayal was that you never knew the why of it. Or at least it made no sense. Carol Chambers brushed her blonde hair out of her eyes and clicked once more through the open windows on her workstation monitor. Nothing.

  That’s the way she had always felt about her father. Perhaps finding the answer to the why was the reason she had joined the Agency.

  It couldn’t have been anything else. Her degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology notwithstanding, she was a hacker pure and simple, and while the CIA was at least a semi-legal use for her talents, she knew corporations that would have paid better.

  “Still no money trail?”

  Carol Chambers looked up from her workstation in the operations center. “Still nothing, Ron. There’s no evidence that Tehran ever paid him a dime.”

  Ron Carter nodded, a sober look on his dark face. The African-American was in charge of NCS Field Support and Analysis, and one of the best photoanalysts Langley had ever seen.

  “I think we had a true believer there.”

  “And to think we thought he was one of us.” Carol let out a long sigh. The story of Hamid Zakiri was quite possibly the biggest intelligence fiasco in CIA history.

  Born in Iraq, or so they’d been led to believe, he had come to the US as a child following Operation Desert Storm. Joining the US Army at the age of nineteen, he’d made it into the Special Forces, the legendary “Green Berets”.

  Zakiri had been awarded the Bronze Star for gallantry in Afghanistan, along with a Purple Heart for a leg wound received in Tikrit, Iraq. And that was where he had come to the attention of the CIA.

  Six years in the Army, nearly another ten in the Clandestine Service. They’d trusted him. Even now, over two months following his betrayal, it was hard to believe that he had been an Iranian sleeper agent.

  The files on the operation were sealed. Only those who had been a part of it knew the full truth. Those he had betrayed.

  The world had been on the brink of war. A biological attack on the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, engineered by the regime of Iranian president Mahmoud F’Azel Shirazi and carried out by elements of Hezbollah. A well-coordinated plan to implicate the state of Israel in the attack, and bring about her destruction.

  The CIA had positioned a strike team to stop the release of the plague bacteria, but they hadn’t had any way of knowing that they were about to be stabbed in the back by one of their own.

  And in the end, the attack had been foiled, but at a terrible cost. Another star placed on the wall, for fallen officer Davood Sarami. Killed by a fellow Muslim.

  Carter was speaking again. “We’re re-tasking,” he said, placing a thumb drive on her desk. “Sergei Ivanovich Korsakov.”

  “Former Spetsnaz, right?” Carol asked, refocusing her thoughts. “Seems like he’s been on our radar before.”

  “Go to the head of the class. He has. Following his discharge from the Russian military in 2000, he’s become a bit of a gun-for-hire, with close ties to the Russian mob and a half dozen other equally unsavory entities in Eastern Europe. Implicated in the assassination of the finance minister of Ukraine three years ago, he’s been out of sight since.”<
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  “Until he showed up in Philly two days ago.”

  The analyst nodded. “I’m putting you and Danny in charge of running this. The DCIA has set up a teleconference at 0800, at which we’ll brief Haskel and the G-men on what we know. Make sure it’s something.”

  “Isn’t it the FBI’s area of responsibility anyway?” Carol asked, allowing herself a smile of amusement at Carter’s reference. Bureau director Eric Haskel was far from popular at Langley.

  “That’s right. We wrap it up like a big fat Christmas present and hand it to them. Just make sure it’s nice and maybe the gods of bureaucracy future will smile upon us.”

  6:31 A.M.

  “When did you first meet Hamid Zakiri?”

  “In 2004,” Harry replied, his tone curt. “In Tikrit.”

  Ellsworth shook his head. “I mean the first time, when he recruited you. Or was it the other way around? You were responsible for his infiltration of the Clandestine Service—what did you get in return? Money?”

  Anger flashed in Harry’s eyes, simmering there below the surface. Another outburst wasn’t going to get him anywhere. “He saved my life in Iraq. I believed he was a patriot—I believed he was one of us.”

  The inspector general continued as though he hadn’t even spoken. “Isn’t that why you killed him? Better that one should die than both of you spend the rest of your days behind bars?”

  “Enough!” Harry rose to his feet, slamming both hands down on the table and leaning in toward Ellsworth. The world seemed to close in on the two of them and he could almost smell the fear like liquor on the bureaucrat’s breath. The sensation was heady, almost intoxicating. He could have snapped the man’s neck in a trice, and they both knew it. Nothing could have saved him.

  “You don’t know what it’s like out there, out beyond these walls,” he whispered, a menacing edge to his voice. “Out where a mistake means death, not a bureaucratic slap on the wrist. There is nothing and no one out there you can trust. No one except your team. And then you can’t always trust them.”

  Hands on his arms, guiding him firmly back into his seat. Security guards, he realized gradually, gazing across at a shaken Ellsworth. It might have been enough, but it wasn’t going to stop here. Maybe it never would…

  6:35 A.M.

  Virginia

  The man rubbed his hands together, the heater of the aging Toyota Corolla barely keeping away the chill. It was almost time, he thought, glancing down at the Glock in the pocket of the door. They had assured him that it was clean, that there was no way the gun could be traced back to him.

  He glanced across the parking lot, watching as a Virginia state trooper walked out of the convenience store, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand as he headed back to his patrol car.

  Jack-booted thug, the man thought, watching the gun on the trooper’s hip. Their time would come soon enough…when America would rise.

  “He’s on the road,” a voice in his ear informed him, and he reached nervously up to turn down the volume of his Bluetooth. As if the police would be able to hear him.

  Meeting this man…had given him purpose. Direction. For years, he had watched in helpless frustration as the globalists met, planned, stealing his newfound country away from him. Bold in the certainty of their victory, the corporations—the banksters. Jews scheming in the dark corners of world.

  And then he had come into his life…a man like none he had ever known. And all he needed was his help.

  If you want to fight with a serpent, you put out its eyes, the man had said, his voice full of knowledge. Confidence.

  And who serves as the eyes of the New World Order? The NSA, the CIA—the men who run them. Men like David Lay.

  “I’m moving,” he whispered into his earpiece, his mouth suddenly dry as he put the sedan into drive. “Sic semper tyrannus.”

  So always to tyrants.

  There was a moment’s pause before his friend’s voice came over the line—the voice of reassurance that had guided him down this path. “In liberty, my brother.”

  6:38 A.M.

  Along I-495

  Near Tyson’s Corner, Virginia

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  The driver allowed himself a smile, glancing out the tinted windows of the Dodge Durango at the passing traffic. The vehicle was pulled over on the shoulder of the interstate—a worn t-shirt flapping in the cold winter wind between the window and the door signaling that the vehicle was abandoned—perhaps out of gas or suffering mechanical problems.

  Or, just waiting… which was more to the point of it.

  “Just something they say, Pavel,” the driver replied, catching his partner’s eye in the rearview mirror. Seven weeks of planning, all of it leading up to this day. Less time than he would have liked…but recruiting the American had turned out to be the easy part of it. Useful idiot.

  Consumed by his fantasies of a coming New World Order, of being liberty’s hero, he had never guessed how he was being played. That he was, in fact, nothing more than a pawn in a much larger game.

  Or that he would be dead within the next twenty minutes.

  6:39 A.M.

  Virginia

  “They’re reporting a two-vehicle accident on the primary route,” Ramirez remarked. “Apparently somebody was tail-gating and skid on the ice. Idiot commuters.”

  A smile crossed Lay’s face. The snow wasn’t bad, but folks in Virginia weren’t used to it. He had spent his childhood in Vermont, and learned to drive up there. Now that was snow. “We’re taking the alternate, then?”

  The SEAL nodded. “It’s a bit longer, but they’re liable to be backed up with the accident. And we’ve not used it for two days, so we should be good.”

  Always security-conscious, the DCIA mused. That was Ramirez. There had been a time he would have dismissed it. Not now.

  Behind them, the Toyota merged with traffic two cars back. “I have them,” the man announced, speaking into the wireless headset of his cellphone. He pulled the Glock out of the pocket of the door, laying the polymer handgun across his lap with sweaty fingers. Cursing his fear. “They are proceeding along Route Three, the same one they used two days ago. What do you want me to do?”

  “Just maintain a following position,” came the calm voice. “I’ll talk you through this. You’re going to be fine.”

  6:43 A.M.

  An apartment

  Manassas, Virginia

  A blurred image of himself in the mirror was the first thing Thomas Parker saw of the morning. He felt suddenly dizzy and threw out a hand, steadying himself against the edge of the sink.

  A wave of nausea nearly overcame him and he coughed, feeling sick. Very sick. He reached for the faucet, turning on the cold water, splashing it over his hands and face. His aching head.

  It might have been easier if he’d actually been sick. Knowing the headache and nausea were a direct result of too much alcohol the previous evening didn’t help his mood any.

  One way or the other, he was going to have to sober up or he was going to be late. The CIA didn’t know about the drinking problem he’d developed, and he planned to keep it that way. He was on a strike team, after all. Mistakes weren’t tolerated. Mistakes killed.

  His gaze drifted toward the sticky note on the mirror, the phone number written there. The number of Harry’s pastor. Nichols, his team lead, knew about the problem, and that was his solution.

  Thomas snorted. Yeah, some solution. An avowed agnostic for all of his adult life, he saw no reason to change his mind now. Certainly the betrayal of Hamid Zakiri had done nothing but deepen his cynicism. And his drinking.

  They’d shared this apartment, he and Hamid, a way to keep down the cost of living in suburban Virginia. It had been for Hamid’s benefit, not his own. He’d been the manager of a Fortune 500 tech company in the years before 9/11, and his money was invested wisely.

  About the only thing he’d done wisely.

  “Thomas?” Her voice sounded shriller this mornin
g. He looked into the mirror to see a brunette standing in the bathroom door, her hair a mess and wearing one of his shirts.

  She’d looked better when he was drunk too, he realized sourly. He couldn’t remember her name, nor much of anything else from the previous evening, in fact. The Agency would have a cow if they knew.

  With their jealous watch over security clearances, the CIA took a dimmer view of one-night stands than most parents. Make that parents with a multi-million-dollar surveillance budget and you have the picture.

  He turned back to the sink, trying to block her voice from his head. He was going to be late for work…

  6:51 A.M.

  Virginia

  “Target is closing, approximately five hundred meters now. Are you ready?”

  They spy on us, we spy on them, the man had said. They target us…we target them. It was true, what Jones had always warned about the shadow government. The tyrants in Washington had been killing people for years…now was their time. The driver of the Toyota nodded nervously, covering his fear with a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah—I can do this.”

  “Then be quiet and focus,” came the calm reply. “ I’ll guide you in. Three hundred meters.”

  For a moment, the driver took his eyes off the target SUV two cars ahead, glancing nervously once more at the Glock. He’d never killed a man, but this—this was justice…

  “Two hundred meters,” the voice in his ear intoned. The driver hit his turn signal and accelerated hard into the fast lane…

  Defensive driving hadn’t been a part of Hell Week, but the Secret Service had taught Ramirez everything he needed to know on the subject.

  A curse escaped his lips as he saw the Toyota in his driver’s side mirror, accelerating fast. A threat.

  Alerted by his bodyguard’s outburst, Lay looked up into the mirror. The small sedan filled his field of view, and in that moment he knew. It was them…

  There was no time to react, no time for self-recriminations or doubt. It all happened too fast.

  Ramirez put the wheel over, hard to the right, flooring the accelerator in an attempt to thread the needle up the shoulder of the road.