TALISMAN: A Shadow Warriors Short Story Read online

  He dropped to one knee beside his principal, feeling for a pulse. Nothing.

  Al-Harbi’s head lolled to one side, something rolling from between his lips to fall on the carpet.

  It was a poker chip, Ibrahim realized, picking it up between his thumb and forefinger. Slimy with saliva, the clammy feeling of death. Imprinted with its denomination—five thousand dollars. And a single word.

  Bellagio.

  But still no shooter. His vision seemed to clear and he glanced back to see his surviving men standing in the door, their weapons held at the ready. Just standing there.

  And with the sight came the realization of how they had been played, a bellow escaping Ibrahim’s lips. “Find him!”

  2:17 A.M. Local Time

  US Embassy

  Rome, Italy

  It was like playing God, Carter thought, staring at the live feed from the spy satellite. Staring down from miles above the earth, the KH-13’s cameras aimed squarely at the oncoming French patrol boat.

  The P619 Huveaune—a complement of eight sailors, he remembered, thinking back to the briefing days before. No heavy guns mounted.

  Small comfort. “The moment of truth,” Holbrook whispered from beside him.

  The analyst nodded. It was moments like this that were intelligence work at its most frightening. The realization of helplessness. All the technology, all the resources…and nothing you could do to alter what was about to happen.

  Fate.

  1:18 A.M. Local Time

  The Khaybar

  And Ibrahim knew—saw the stun grenade now for what it had been. Nothing more than a diversion, a distraction. And it had worked.

  Now…now the shooter could be anywhere. He’d split his team up, taking one man with him—sending the other two back toward the stern.

  Movement above him on the stairs and he brought the HK45 up, thrusting it into the face of a frightened crewman.

  The man was saying something, gesticulating wildly but he couldn’t hear him—his ears still ringing from the force of the blast.

  Finally—“…off the bow.”

  Something. He thrust the sailor aside, bounding up the stairs and into the open night air. A breeze sweeping over the bow of the massive yacht.

  No sound. Ibrahim ran to the rail, his weapon extended in front of him—taking in at a glance the smear of blood against the white paint.

  And there was nothing there, nothing but the ink-black waters below him, lapping at the Khaybar’s bow.

  Nothing. Not so much as a look at the face of the man who had killed his principal.

  Nothing but a shadow in the night.

  8:32 A.M. Eastern Time, March 23 rd

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  It was always a strange feeling walking back into the nerve center of the Clandestine Service after an op. Stranger still in the months since Nichols had left the Agency.

  Yet…the war went on.

  “Kranemeyer wants to see you in his office,” Danny Lasker announced as Richards came through the doors, swiping his keycard.

  “Debrief?” he asked, glancing over at the CLANDOPS communications chief. It had been a long flight back from Monaco—three planes and five different countries. Under two different Canadian passports.

  A nod from Lasker. “Good job, by the way—you didn’t hear this from me…but the White House is very happy. They asked for a clean kill, and you delivered.”

  Yeah. A long flight, and too much time to think. “What’s the status on the tracker?”

  “The one in the poker chip?” A grin crossed the comm chief’s cherubic face. “Thought they might find it…but it’s still live. Live and on its way home to daddy. The courier carrying it landed at Heathrow this morning.”

  Tex returned Lasker’s grin with a weary smile of his own. One down. One to go.

  One of the TV screens mounted along the wall of the op center caught his eye and the smile vanished quick as it had come. Hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans, he walked across the op-center to stand before the TV as the CNN anchor continued, “…the body of Rachel Mancuso was found this morning, washed up on a beach in Monaco—where the Wall Street investment banker’s daughter had gone missing after a night of partying four days ago. The initial reports all point to drowning as the cause of death…”

  Right. He could still see her sitting there in the Café Americain, her eyes radiant. Full of life.

  Only hours away from her death. And he had been too late to save her.

  He grimaced in pain, running a hand over his leathery face as if to shut out the images.

  Clean kill? There was no such thing. Just fresh bodies—in a war without end…

  The End

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