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Kai plugged the USB stick into the side of her smart TV and went to sit on the couch. She pulled over a tray table with her dinner on it and reached for the remote. After Jared left, her mind had been preoccupied with both the op and the thumb drive he’d slipped her on the porch. While she grilled her chicken breast and made steamed vegetables and rice to go with it, her mind kept wandering back to the sheer audacity of what they were being asked to do.
Not that she minded. She loved impossible missions like this. But the fact remained that it was a fool’s mission. If they failed, and the Americans got even remotely suspicious that Mossad was interfering with their operation, the consequences were unfathomable.
So why were they doing it?
She cut into her grilled chicken, took a bite, then turned on the TV. It wasn’t standard procedure for Jared to pass her information before a briefing. He clearly wanted her to know something that he had no intention of telling the rest of the team. Why? And why her and not someone else?
The 65 inch screen came alive, displaying a series of video files. Clicking on the first one, she put the remote down beside her and picked up her knife and fork again. Kai found herself watching old news coverage of the explosion at the US embassy in New Delhi. The first clip was from a world-wide news channel, filmed just half an hour after the bomb detonated. She watched as firefighters battled the blaze behind the reporters and listened as they speculated on whether or not the explosion was the work of a bomb. Her lips twisted dryly when the reporter said that there was no indication of terrorist involvement.
The next clip highlighted a French broadcast filmed two hours after the incident as the estimations of the killed and missing began rolling in. Kai remembered watching this one live. She had been in Paris at the time, and had watched the new coverage with only a mild interest. At least, until the reporter had interrupted himself with the breaking news that Masha’al Al-Amin had claimed responsibility, confirming that the blast was indeed the work of a terrorist bomb. She remembered how she had stiffened at the time. Masha’al was a name she knew well, and she hadn’t been surprised at all to find that he was the one behind the bombing.
She reached for a glass of water now, sipping it as the clip ended. After a moment, she picked up the remote and clicked on the next file. Why did Jared have her watching a bunch of old news clips? They knew everything there was to know about the attack now. What was the point in re-watching old broadcasts?
The next one was British, and had aired the following day. The number of dead or presumed dead had climbed to two hundred and seven, with over forty critically wounded. The US was vowing to respond with force, and England was lending their support. Her lips twisted as she forked a broccoli floret and raised it to her mouth. Ah yes. The West had been up in arms at the sheer insolence of a little-known terrorist who dared to attack the United States so brazenly. Worse, he had succeeded in getting a bomb inside one of their embassies without it being detected. The gall! Never mind that Masha’al had been terrorizing Jordan, Egypt, Israel and Turkey for years. Now it was personal. He’d gone after Americans.
Kai stilled and reached for the remote, pausing the news program suddenly. The broadcast was showing footage of rubble, the remains of what, the day before, had been the US embassy. She stared at the paused image, her eyebrows soaring into her forehead.
“Well hello,” she murmured. “What the hell were you doing there?”
In the background, near the corner of a nearby building, stood a tall man whom she recognized. When she was doing her research prior to Bucharest, this man had figured prominently in all her scenarios. He was, or had been, Vali Melnik’s most trusted bodyguard.
Kai frowned. If he had been there, then so had Melnik. But why? Of what interest was the bombing to Melnik? He had nothing to do with the Americans, nor had he ever displayed the least inclination to pick a fight with them. But if his main bodyguard had been in New Delhi the day after the attack, then so had he.
She hit play and watched the rest of the broadcast, paying more attention to the actual footage than what the reporter was saying. The clip ended without any other signs of Melnik or his associates, though, and she reluctantly moved on to the next file.
And found herself staring at Masha’al Al-Amin himself.
It was the video in which he had claimed responsibility for the bombing. He was standing in what appeared to be a small room with an old stone wall behind him. The camera was trained on his face, showing nothing else in the room aside from that stone wall. Kai had seen the clip numerous times, watched as he had denounced the United States and her allies, promising to deliver death and destruction from within. The rhetoric was familiar, and as she saw the glint in his eyes, her lips tightened. She called it the crazy look. It was a look all the extremists had, a look of complete devotion to their cause. It was a look that she’d been trained to recognize in a single glance.
She pushed the table away with her empty plate and stood up as the video ended, picking up the plate and carrying it into the kitchen. Why did Jared want her to watch clips of Masha’al? The man was almost a household name now. Everyone knew what he looked like. She wasn’t likely to forget their target.
Her mind went back to Melnik’s bodyguard as she put her plate in the sink and turned to the refrigerator. She opened the door and pulled out the bottle of vodka Jared had left behind, pouring it into a glass. What had Melnik been doing in New Delhi? And why did Jared want her know that he’d been there?
Carrying the drink back into the living room, Kai settled herself on the couch again and picked up the remote, clicking on the last video file. It was another video of Masha’al. He was in a different room, and the time stamp on the recording dated it as being filmed two months ago. This time the wall behind him was whitewashed brick and Kai shook her head, sipping her vodka. Why hadn’t they covered the wall? It was almost as if they were daring all the intelligence agencies to come find them.
And now, apparently, they had.
She watched as he ranted and raved about the oppression and decadence of the United States, tamping down her impatience as the speech showed no sign of wrapping up. Most of what he was saying had been said hundreds of times before by the many others who came before him, and it would be said a hundred times again by those who would come after him. Their message never changed. Death, destruction and annihilation. It was all they cared about.
Kai sat up suddenly, her eyes narrowing, and she snatched up the remote to pause the video. She stared at the top, right corner of the screen with a frown. She could have sworn there was a shadow there, but with the video paused, that section of the wall was the same color as the rest of it. She hit play only to pause it again a second later. This time, the shadow was frozen with the rest of the clip.
Backing up the video, Kai switched to a slower speed and muted the sound. The shadow flashed across the corner, then flashed again a second later. As she watched, it continued to flash in and out of the frame until it finally stopped. The video ended a moment later.
Setting her drink on the table next to the couch, Kai got up and went over to pull the USB stick out of the TV. Grabbing her drink on her way, she strode out of the living room and down the hallway to her office on the opposite end of the house. She seated herself behind her desk and plugged the stick into her laptop. A few minutes later, she had opened a special program and uploaded the video into it. Sitting back, she sipped her vodka and watched as the software ran.
She didn’t know why the shadow bothered her so much. It was most likely nothing, and almost certainly had absolutely nothing to do with their black op into Egypt. But Kai didn’t like things she didn’t understand, and she knew she wouldn’t rest easily tonight until she figured out what that intermittent shadow was behind Masha’al. Her lips curved humorously. Jared knew her well. He knew she’d dissect the videos, searching for anything that was unusual or out of place. It was what she did. When she was completing her mandatory military service at the age of eighteen, one of her superiors had told her that her penchant for digging for details was a form of OCD, and that it would get her killed one day.
Kai lifted the vodka to her lips. Instead of getting her killed, it had saved her life more than once. But of course, that long ago instructor had had no idea that Kai would end up being recruited into Mossad. She supposed if she’d remained in the army, the recklessness her curiosity inevitably induced would have gotten her killed eventually. There was no time on the battlefield for digging out anomalies and analyzing them. Of course, there was no time for it in her line of work either. She did all the prep work ahead of time, ensuring that there were no surprises on her battlefield.
Only flawlessly executed success.
The laptop beeped and she leaned forward, setting the glass down as she clicked on the video again. The software had slowed the clip down well beyond what any video play was capable of, and she zoomed in on the top corner of the screen. When the shadow appeared, Kai watched intently as it moved into the frame from the lower right. It proceeded upwards in a clockwise movement before disappearing to the right again. As soon as it cleared the frame, Kai watched the millisecond timer, noting the time it took before it reappeared. When the next one had left the frame, she watched the timer again. Exactly the same amount of time passed before the next shadow came.
Ten minutes later, she sat back in her chair and smiled slowly. The shadow was caused by a mechanical rotation. Someone had landed a helicopter outside the building where Masha’al was recording two months ago. Now who would risk going to visit an international fugitive?
Kai saved the new files and pulled the flash drive out of the laptop, closing it. She slid it into her pocket and got up from the desk, picking up her glass. Tossing back the rest of the vodka, she turned and left her office, switching off the light. She had no idea who would be foolish enough to fly out to meet Masha’al when there was a global manhunt on for him, but it had to be someone who was confident that they would never be discovered.
And that alone made it worth uncovering them.
Western Afghanistan
Dean peered over the crumbling stone wall and watched through his ENVGs as three of his team proceeded to the south side of the short, square building thirty feet away. He shifted his gaze to the building itself. There were two windows on this side, but black curtains sealed out the night, preventing any prying eyes like his from seeing inside. Reaching up, he clicked a button on the side of his head unit and flipped the goggles to a single vision view on one eye, refocusing and sweeping the area on the north side of the building. The thermal readings showed no enemies lurking in the trees to the north, and he motioned with his hand to the three specialists behind him. They moved quickly, leaping over the low wall and running around the perimeter to approach the building from the north side.
Glancing at the time, Dean waited as both teams got into position. He rested the barrel of his rifle on the top of the wall, ready to back them up and fire if the need arose. However, given the quiet mountains on all sides, he didn’t anticipate any surprises. Everything was just as JSOC had said it would be: the insurgents were inside the building and there were no perimeter guards. It was a textbook mission.
As soon as the first group entered the building from the south, he pulled his rifle back and did a final thermal sweep of the surrounding mountainside. Confident that no enemies were lurking in the darkness, Dean placed his left hand on the top of the wall and vaulted over to run to the south side of the building. By the time he reached the back door, the second group had breached the building from the north and was reporting their progress.
Ducking through the door, he found himself in a large square room with a folding table on one wall and long counter on the other with an old, metal sink built into the middle. After a quick glance around, Dean moved towards a door leading into the next room. Gunfire erupted from the front of the building and his team members began yelling to each other. The militants were in the north and east sections of the one floor building. Stepping into the next room, Dean looked around swiftly. A figure moved on his right and he swung around, throwing his arm up to block the downward swing of a meaty arm holding a deadly curved blade.
His attacker grunted as Dean twisted the wrist holding the knife, snapping the bone at the same time that his boot slammed into the assailant’s right knee. The man opened his mouth to cry out in pain but never got the opportunity. Dean’s combat knife slid into his throat, slicing through his esophagus and continuing through to the carotid artery. The man fell sideways, blood pouring from his throat, dead.
Dean swung around and continued through the room to the door on the other side, reaching for his rifle. Pausing at the side of the door, he peered around the edge into the next room. Billy the Kid, one of the first group to enter the building, was standing guard at the next doorway with three dead militants scattered across the floor. When Dean stepped into the room, Billy nodded at him and motioned to the next room. He held up his hand, indicating six hostiles, and Dean nodded back. There was another door on the other side, leading to the west side of the building, and he knew the other two had gone that way. He motioned that he would take the lead and Billy nodded, stepping silently to the side.
Gunfire was still coming from the front of the building, and Dean tightened his hold on the rifle. Moving to the side of the door, he glanced into the next room. As Billy had indicated, there were six of the enemy inside, all armed. He pulled a stun grenade out of his pack and pressed the button, bending down to slide it into the room, noting the positions of the militants as he did so. A second later, it went off, filling the room with a blinding light and ear-piercing bang. Nodding to Billy, Dean moved in, firing. As he moved further into the room, Billy entered behind him. Within seconds, the room was secured, the enemy combatants dead. As they approached the front of the building where heavy fighting was still ongoing, Billy tapped his shoulder and indicated that the other two had joined them after securing the west side of the building.
The four emerged into the front of the building, walking into a vicious firefight. A swift glance showed that the three SEALs were outnumbered and outgunned. They had taken cover behind an overturned metal table and were returning fire as the militants kept them pinned behind their protection.
“Hold your fire,” Dean said into his head comm. “We’re coming in behind them.”
He waited for the soldiers pinned behind the table to acknowledge, then nodded to Billy. Entering behind the enemy, Dean counted eleven militants, all heavily armed.
He and Billy took the left side while the other two took the right. Moving forward swiftly, Dean used his combat knife on the one closest to him, killing him silently. Billy did the same with one nearby, but then one of the others caught sight of them. With the element of surprise gone, Dean and his team opened fire.
The whole thing was over in less than a minute, with eleven militants dead and only one of his team wounded. While Billy and the other two did another sweep to confirm the building was secured, Dean went over to where Ron, one of the three who had been pinned behind the table, was leaning against the wall, blood soaking his arm.
“It’s fine,” he said as Dean crouched down beside him to look. “I think it went through.”
“It doesn’t look fine,” Dean retorted, pulling out his knife and cutting open the jacket sleeve. “Doc!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Brenner, go get Doc and send him back. He’s doing a SSE with the others, looking for intel.”
Brenner nodded and moved out of the large front room in search of the team medic.
“I’m telling you, it’s fine.”
“That’s great, but you’re getting a quick clot bandage anyway,” Dean retorted. “We’ll get it wrapped up and then we’ll get out of here.”
Ron choked back a laugh. “There’s no one left to follow a trail.”
“More will come.” Dean nodded to a shattered radio on the far side of the room. “They got a message out as you came in. Ressler’s in the nest. They intercepted it just as all hell let loose.”
“Well hell.”
Dean grinned despite the grim scene around them. “Don’t worry. We’ll be long gone before they get here.”
“Not if y’all keep dawdling like this.” Dean’s helmet came alive with the sound of Brian’s voice. “What are you guys doing? Taking a break?”
“Ron’s got a hole in his arm,” Dean told him. “The others are making sure we got them all and prepping the building. We’ll be out in five,” he added as Doc strode into the room and headed for Ron.
“You better be. Reinforcements are on their way. They’re nine minutes out.”
“Get him ready to move,” Dean told Doc, moving away to give him room. “You have three minutes.”
Doc nodded and bent over Ron, pulling a medical pack out of his kit. Dean nodded to the other two and they moved to the door, taking up defensive positions at the front entrance.
“How we looking, Billy?” he asked into his radio.
“Heading back, sir. Charges placed. Building secure.”
Dean nodded and watched as Doc worked rapidly, cleaning and wrapping Ron’s arm.
“Well Doc?”
“The bullet went right through. He’ll be fine.”
“Told you,” Ron said with a grin. “I’ve had enough of these to know when it’s bad.”
Doc finished wrapping the arm and packed his kit way swiftly, standing just as Billy and the others came through the door. After a quick look around, Dean nodded and motioned to the front door.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Move! We’ve got four minutes to get into the trees before their buddies show up.”
Dean waited until everyone had left the building before moving to the door. He paused in the doorway and pulled out a detonator, taking one last look over his shoulder at the bodies on the floor. Then, stepping outside, he started after his team, pressing the button.
He was halfway to the trees when the building behind him went up in flames, the explosion sending a blast of hot air after him. Dean caught his breath and felt the force of the blast propel him forward. He stumbled forward but stayed on his feet, then continued running for the cover of the mountain.
Behind him, flames engulfed the short, square building, destroying the weapons cache and burning the militants left inside.
