“Someone’s coming. Keep your eyes open, and be ready for anything.”
Hearing the warning in the wireless receiver inserted into her right ear, Amorah Banovich saw the headlights pushing aside the darkness and beginning to illuminate the top of a small rise to her left. The still night air had already allowed her to pick up the faint sounds of at least two vehicle engines making their way up the service road. Pulling back from the scope of her Dragunov sniper rifle, Banovich watched as a dark Toyota Land Cruiser crested a hill at the far end of the compound, navigating the narrow, poorly maintained road that snaked between the rows of dilapidated warehouses. Behind the SUV was a larger vehicle, a nondescript white cargo truck. The beams of their headlights swept across the walls of the low-rise buildings at the far end of the compound, and the whines of their engines were punctuated by the crunching of tires crossing dirt and uneven gravel.
“Damn this heat,” she whispered, pulling her right hand from the Dragunov’s stock so that she could wipe perspiration from the side of her face. The thick, warm air that was characteristic of summers here was just one of the many things she hated about this irritating sliver of an island, and made her long for the more temperate climate of Prague. It wasn’t the first time that an assignment had brought Banovich to Okinawa, and she loathed every occasion that required her to travel to this part of the world. Even now, nearly two hours before the first hints of sunrise began painting the sky, the humidity was uncomfortable and on its way toward oppressive despite the light breeze wafting in from the ocean to her back.
She sighed. More than a soothing shower or just a simple bottle of water, what Banovich wanted right now was a cigarette, but the time for that had passed. Lighting up now would serve only to mark her position as she lay in the tall grass overlooking the compound from its west end. The small rise was one of the few spots not illuminated by lights from nearby Naha, the island’s capital city, and allowed her sniper’s perch to remain cloaked in darkness. This was the intention, of course, as she and her partner, along with two other men, were providing perimeter cover. Below them, Banovich could see four figures standing at the center of an open compound in front of a dull white Toyota sedan of the sort that seemed to account for 90 percent of the cars on Okinawa. The Toyota and all four men were within the halo of light cast by the lone lamp situated at the periphery of the dull brown-gray dirt-and-gravel lot between the clusters of warehouses. Behind them sat a white cargo truck of a type similar to the one currently approaching the compound.
“Two vehicles coming your way,” Banovich said into the microphone positioned near her mouth and connected to her earpiece. “SUV in front, followed by a panel truck. No way to know how many men might be in the truck.”
“Perhaps a dozen, altogether,” replied the voice of Grisha Zherdev, the group’s leader. Banovich watched him and his three companions turning toward the approaching vehicles. “It’s a good thing I have you watching my back.” Banovich almost thought she could hear him smiling as he offered the second comment.
Resuming her position behind the Dragunov, she closed her left eye and peered through the sniper rifle’s scope at the approaching vehicles. The SUV’s windows were tinted, but the headlights from the cargo truck were sufficient to illuminate the lead car’s interior so that she could count four heads. Her finger stroked the rifle’s trigger. It would be so easy to kill the driver even from this distance, but that wasn’t her mission; at least, not yet. Taking action against the newcomers might well become necessary, but that hinged on what they chose to do in the next few minutes.
Banovich forced herself to remain still as the vehicles made their way over a final small hump in the dirt road and entered the compound, the cargo truck bouncing on the path’s worn, uneven surface. The first vehicle’s headlights played across Zherdev and the others as the new arrivals began to close the distance across the open expanse separating the warehouse buildings.
“All right, people,” said Zherdev over the open channel, “stay alert. I don’t want any surprises.”
“Got it.” Pulling back once more from the sight, Banovich glanced to the still figure lying prone in the grass to her left. Despite the heat, the man was dressed in dark clothing including a heavy jacket, gloves, and a wool cap that concealed his blond hair. He hadn’t moved since they had taken up position on the rise, his attention fixed on the compound below as he peered through the scope of the sniper’s rifle that was a match for her Dragunov. In the few months she had known him, she had come to learn that his reserved manner belied a singular focus on whatever commanded his attention at any given moment. He approached every task with deliberation and a quiet intensity that she found—among other things—alluring. This strength of purpose had served him well during his brief tenure as a member of Zherdev’s team.
“You ready, Stefan?”
* * *
So absorbed was his attention on the approaching vehicles that it took Jack Bauer an extra moment to realize Amorah Banovich was calling him by his cover name. Turning his head from the scope mounted to the top of his rifle, Jack saw her staring at him, an expression of concern gracing her soft features. Like him, she was dressed in dark clothing that helped them blend into the hillside where they had taken up their positions. Her brown hair was pulled away from her face, knotted in a ponytail that rested across her left shoulder.
“I said, are you ready?” she asked, her voice low but still audible.
Trying to split his attention between Banovich and the oncoming vehicles, Jack nodded. “Yeah.” Despite his composed demeanor, his pulse was racing and it required effort to keep his breathing under control. He was irritated with himself for allowing fear and uncertainty to gain any sort of foothold on his emotions. Why was he so damned nervous?
Because there are so many things that can go wrong?
“I only see the two vehicles,” he remarked, keeping his voice low as he employed the thick Russian accent that was part of his cover. “Think they’re alone?”
Banovich shook her head. “No.”
“Me, neither.” Even though no one in the compound was likely to hear them, Jack didn’t discount the possibility of the new arrivals having dispatched their own people into the area surrounding the warehouses to scout for security. In their position, he would do the same thing, and he had been on the lookout for anyone moving about on foot. So far, signs pointed to him and Banovich being alone here, and the other two-person team Grisha Zherdev had deployed to the compound’s opposite end had likewise reported no suspicious activity.
Meanwhile, Jack’s gut was telling him a different story.
Thanks to time spent serving with the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, and the Los Angeles Police Department, he was no rookie or stranger to hazardous situations. His skills and track record had smoothed his entry into the Central Intelligence Agency. Even though he technically was a “junior agent,” his prior experience and qualifications had allowed his mentors, Abigail Cohen and Bill Fields, to utilize him in a handful of high-profile operations. His personnel reviews reported him as an agent on the fast track for climbing the CIA hierarchy ladder. Cohen had remarked that his potential was unlimited if he maintained his current standard of performance.
All of that sounded nice, but at the moment, Jack’s main concern was surviving the day.
Through his rifle’s scope, he studied the cargo truck following the SUV. Its headlights washed across the side of a nearby warehouse, illuminating for a brief moment the truck cab’s interior. “Three in the truck’s cab,” he reported. “No telling how many in the back.”
“So, at least seven,” replied Banovich. “Maybe three or four with the cargo. Now I know they have backup somewhere. Keep your eyes open.”
For a moment, Jack pondered the odd circumstances that had brought him to the point of providing cover for criminals while they attempted to do business with a group of likeminded individuals. While it wasn’t the most bizarre situation in which Jack had ever found himself as a consequence of his job, he guessed it would end up ranking among the most memorable, assuming he lived long enough to reflect on the day’s events, or tell anyone else about it.
Jack’s present cover identity had taken months to establish. He was Stefan Voronov, a former soldier who, like so many others, had deserted the Russian military years ago while it was still recovering from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Abby Cohen and a team of specialists had worked out every key and seemingly insignificant detail of Voronov’s fabricated personal history, after which Jack and another agent, William Fields, had been positioned in Kiev, Ukraine. There supposedly were other agents embedded in other areas of Gadjoyan’s organization, but Jack had not been briefed on their activities or even their identities. Working independently, Fields and Bauer had secured employment as dockworkers with one of the freight companies that used the Dnieper River to transport goods to and from the city. The warehouses had been identified as a front; one of several businesses owned and operated by Tateos Gadjoyan, an Armenian arms dealer with interests across Europe.
The CIA had become aware of Gadjoyan and his activities thanks to his attempts to procure nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction. The mission given to Fields and Jack had been simple, if dangerous: find a way to infiltrate Gadjoyan’s organization and collect any information that could be used to expose his criminal enterprise. This required both agents to play the game of landing jobs at the dockside warehouse and doing whatever menial, mundane tasks might be required of a new hire at the bottom of the ladder. Fields had been working at the freight company for almost two months, while Jack had hired on three weeks later. Both agents kept their ears and eyes open and their heads down as they attempted to gather intel. It largely had been a fruitless endeavor, given Gadjoyan’s penchant for maintaining a heavy veil of secrecy separating his legitimate business dealings from his illicit activities.
A fortunate opportunity to move up presented itself when Jack had observed two other dockworkers attempting to sneak a large packing crate from the warehouse. Jack and another man, Victor Dudin, who had been acting as his floor manager, intercepted the would-be robbers in the midst of loading the crate into a cargo van. In the ensuing scuffle, the crate fell from the van onto the concrete, splitting open and revealing a consignment of what Jack had recognized as factory-fresh AK-74M assault rifles, each boasting its own GP-34 grenade launcher. Under Dudin’s direction, he and Jack collected the weapons and returned them to the warehouse before Dudin reported the incident to his supervisor, Grisha Zherdev.
As reward for their quick thinking, loyalty, and honesty, both Dudin and Jack were “promoted” and moved to another part of the warehouse under Zherdev’s direct supervision. It was there that Jack, now working like Bill Fields as a security man and handler of whatever other jobs Zherdev had for him, got his first peek into the inner workings of Tateos Gadjoyan’s criminal empire. Though his role was small and peripheral, Jack still was able to observe all manner of activities as well as the comings and goings of Gadjoyan’s “business associates.” This information was relayed at sporadic intervals to Abby Cohen, who was acting as Fields’ and Jack’s handler.
“Here we go,” said Zherdev, his voice sounding small and distant to Jack as it filtered through his earpiece. Down in the compound, the SUV and its trailing cargo truck were slowing, several meters from where the Russian and his three companions stood. Zherdev sounded cool and composed, as was his nature. In the short time Jack had known him, Grisha Zherdev had never so much as raised his voice in anger, let alone lashed out the way Jack had seen other members of Gadjoyan’s inner circle behave. Instinct told Jack that this man had seen and experienced far more than a man of his age ought to have endured. Attempts at casual conversation had gotten him to talk in general, vague terms about his past service in the Ukrainian military. Beyond that, the man was a closed book, and even the agency’s attempts to provide Jack and Fields with any sort of useful information had come up dry.
“Grisha,” Jack heard Banovich say, “I don’t like this. Something doesn’t feel right.” The words echoed in his ear a heartbeat after she spoke them from where she lay in the grass ten feet from him.
“If everything felt right to you,” Zherdev replied, “you wouldn’t be doing your job. At the first sign of trouble, kill them all. Everyone else, wait for Amorah before you open fire.”
Swapping his rifle’s scope for a tactical monocular he pulled from his jacket’s inside pocket, Jack scanned the area surrounding the compound. Upon their arrival, he and Banovich, along with the other pair of men providing flank security for Zherdev, had performed a brief reconnoiter of the area. They had found nothing among any of the buildings and the grassy hills rising up from open field. This had done little to alleviate Jack’s incessant worry that all here wasn’t what it seemed. He knew almost nothing about the people with whom Zherdev was meeting, but the conversations he had overheard indicated that Tateos Gadjoyan trusted—at least, to a point—the people with whom Zherdev was here to do business. The two men likely were not friends, although Jack had learned that Gadjoyan and his Okinawan counterpart, an older man named Miroji Jimura, had conducted various dealings over the years. Each viewed the other as someone with whom doing business was beneficial. So long as that remained the case, Jack surmised, there should be no problem.
So, why is my gut giving me fits?
Wiping sweat from his face as he returned the monocular to his jacket pocket, Jack felt dampness under his arms and in the small of his back, and the unmistakable rush of adrenaline as the vehicles continued their approach. He settled himself once more behind the Dragunov, drawing a series of deep breaths as he aligned the rifle’s scope at the SUV. Through the reticule, he could see Bill Fields, operating under his alias of Levon Sarkisian, standing close to Zherdev. The senior agent looked calm and collected, like the seasoned professional Jack knew him to be. Meanwhile, Jack was sure he might throw up all over his rifle.
There was nothing to do but wait.
* * *
Standing behind Grisha Zherdev with two of the other men serving as Zherdev’s security detail, William Fields removed his hands from the pockets of his worn leather jacket and allowed his arms to hang loosely at his sides. He glanced to his left and right to see his companions mimicking his movements, each of them demonstrating that they held no weapons. They were armed, of course; Fields felt the press of the Glock pistol tucked into his waistband just inside his jacket’s left side. He wouldn’t hesitate to use it if circumstances warranted drawing the weapon, but his employer—rather, Levon Sarkisian’s employer—had vouched for the man on the other side of the deal that was about to take place.
It had taken more than a year of undercover work, preceded by months of covert surveillance and planning, for Fields to get to this point. Tateos Gadjoyan was an intelligent, deliberate man who left nothing to chance. Although the CIA’s monitoring of the man’s businesses and activities had provided much in the way of suspicion and allegation, the agency had been able to collect almost nothing in the way of actionable intelligence.
The investigation had gained considerable traction after an undercover asset already embedded within Gadjoyan’s organization was able to turn one of the arms dealer’s most trusted employees, Grisha Zherdev. This development carried with it such sensitivity that even Fields’ junior partner, Jack Bauer, was unaware of it, or even the existence of Daniel Boyce, the undercover CIA agent who had succeeded in converting Zherdev. Using this new advantage and assisted by Bauer, Fields had begun working toward the point of acquiring the final pieces of damning evidence that would allow the CIA to move against Gadjoyan. Their work, along with the support of dozens of agents around the world, might well see them reaching their goal here and now.
Here’s hoping.
Fields ignored the SUV and its headlights, which hadn’t yet been extinguished, instead focusing his gaze on the cargo truck as it pulled around the smaller vehicle. Its headlights washed over him and the rest of the group, and he forced himself not to squint or blink in response to their harsh glare. The truck circled around the front of the SUV before coming to a stop twenty meters in front of him, its rear door now facing in his direction.
Both doors on the truck’s cab opened, and Fields watched three men exit the vehicle and drop to the ground. One of the men who exited via the passenger side smacked the side of the truck’s cargo section with the flat of his hand. Fields saw the vehicle’s rear door raise open to reveal three men. They and their two companions from the SUV began spreading out, their eyes taking in the scene around them. None of them openly carried weapons, but Fields recognized the telltale bulges beneath shirts and jackets. The five men took up positions behind and to either side of their vehicles, each of them splitting their attention between Zherdev and his people and the rest of the compound. Only when they appeared to be in their predetermined positions did the doors of the other vehicle open.
Of the four men who exited the SUV, Fields recognized one from photos shown to him by Zherdev prior to leaving Prague. The lean, muscular man with black hair trimmed almost to his scalp was Kenta Sashida, a top lieutenant in Miroji Jimura’s employ. He was dressed in black cargo pants and a dark dress shirt with its top three buttons opened revealing a tanned chest and an intricate tattoo covering a significant portion of his exposed skin. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal his forearms, which also sported tattoos and a prominent scar running from his left elbow to his wrist. Another scar curved over his right eye, lending an intimidating air to his features.
Moving away from the SUV and the other men who had come with him, Sashida stepped closer to Zherdev, holding his hands away from his sides. “You’re Zherdev.”
“That’s right,” replied Zherdev. “And you’re Sashida.”
Fields knew that this was one of Jimura’s front men, overseeing any number of illicit enterprises. Only one of those interests concerned Zherdev at this moment.
The Okinawan smiled. “You’re shorter than I thought you’d be.”
“And you’re not nearly as pretty.” Zherdev smiled, as though to punctuate the remark’s teasing intent. With the preliminary introductions out of the way, he stepped forward, extending his right hand. Sashida took it and they shook, and Fields noted how each was now doing his best to prove to the other man the strength of his grip. Once that was finished, Zherdev gestured toward the cargo truck. “Looks like you came to do business.”
“Jimura-san does not like to waste time or resources,” replied Sashida. “I trust you are ready to complete this exchange, as well?”
Zherdev nodded. “Absolutely.” He gestured to Fields, and the two men exchanged meaningful glances. “Levon, get the package.”
“Yes, Mister Zherdev,” replied Fields. As he moved to the sedan’s trunk, he noted two of Sashida’s men wrestling with one of the crates from their cargo truck. The container was composed of a hardened plastic, with silver latches and hinges, and required both men to lower it to the ground. At Sashida’s direction, one of the men unfastened the latches and raised the container’s lid to reveal the crate’s contents.
“Very nice,” Zherdev said, offering an approving nod.
Fields studied the ten M16A2 assault rifles resting in padded cradles inside the case. Each looked as though it had just come from the factory, their blackened finishes offering only the slightest reflection of light from the nearby lamp.
“Five hundred, just like these,” said Sashida, indicating with a wave the cargo truck and the containers it held. “None of them have ever been fired.”
Fields forced a smile. “Impressive. How did you manage that?” He knew that the M16s, utilized by the United States military, were hard to come by due to rigid Japanese and Okinawan policies prohibiting the ownership of firearms in general and military weaponry in particular. That didn’t even begin to explain how Jimura had managed to infiltrate a U.S. military armory, either here on Okinawa or the Japanese mainland, or perhaps elsewhere.
“Jimura-san is a man of many talents,” replied Sashida, “and he has numerous friends who owe him favors.”
Turning at the sound of footsteps behind him, Fields saw another of Zherdev’s men approaching with a large bag constructed from black ballistic nylon. He took the bag and set it on the ground between Zherdev and Sashida before moving back to his original position, and Zherdev knelt to open the bag’s zipper. Reaching inside, he extracted a sealed packet of currency and proffered it to Sashida.
“Five hundred thousand dollars,” said Zherdev, “all American, as requested. I was told not to be offended if you chose to count it in front of me.”
This elicited a chuckle from Sashida. “And I was instructed not to count it.”
Rising to his feet, Zherdev once more extended his hand. “If all our exchanges are to be as pleasant as this one, I look forward to continuing our partnership.”
“I’d like that.” Sashida turned to one of his own men and directed him and the others to begin off-loading the crates from their truck. Both men watched in silence as the first of the containers was transferred between the two vehicles. After a few moments, Sashida returned his attention to Zherdev. “Getting these off the island will not be easy.”
Zherdev shrugged. “You have your miracles, and I have mine.”
In truth, Fields knew that under normal circumstances, getting the weapons away from Okinawa would prove challenging. However, money flowing into the proper pockets over at Naha Port would greatly simplify loading the illegal cargo aboard the ship waiting for them. The Konstantinov, an asset belonging to one of Tateos Gadjoyan’s shell companies, would be ready to leave port once Zherdev and his men returned with the consignment. Checking the watch strapped to his left wrist, Fields saw that it was 4:30. Dawn was just over an hour away, and he wanted to be gone from here and to the port before then.
The illuminated dial of his watch was the last thing William Fields saw before he heard the crack of a rifle firing from somewhere nearby.
* * *
“Son of a bitch!”
Jack’s eyes widened in shock and he only just remembered to speak with the proper accent as he saw the greater portion of Bill Fields’ head disappear in an explosion of blood and bone. He fell backward and everyone else, including the Okinawans, were scattering even before Fields’ body collapsed in a limp heap on the dirt and gravel. Weapons were pulled from jackets and beneath shirts as the men lunged for whatever might provide cover and concealment.
“It’s a double cross,” Jack said, gritting his teeth. He shifted his position and his rifle so that he could sight in on the Okinawan man who seemed to be the leader of his group. Before he could center the scope’s crosshairs on the other man’s chest, Jack watched his body jerk as multiple bullets struck him.
What the hell?
“Hold your fire,” said Amorah Banovich, to Jack and for the benefit of the other security team positioned above the compound. “It’s not us.”
“Who is it?” asked a new voice, belonging to Rauf Alkaev, Banovich’s counterpart on the other security team. “Where did they come from?”
Jack pulled his head up from his scope to see that everyone in the compound was under fire. Flashes high and to his left were coming from the hills to the east of the warehouses. Jack was sure he now saw movement among the shadows shrouding the buildings at that end of the yard. Weapons fire was also coming from the depot’s west flank, creating a vicious crossfire down in the compound itself. Zherdev’s men and the Okinawans were easy targets. One or two of the men—Jack couldn’t tell who—were making their way toward the four vehicles in obvious attempts to take cover or perhaps escape, but they had no chance. Within seconds, everyone down in the yard was lying unmoving on the ground.
“Somebody knew we were meeting here,” Jack said, feeling his heart pounding as though it might punch through his chest. For a wild moment, he considered the possibility that law enforcement—either Japan’s National Police Agency or the Self-Defense Forces, or perhaps even an American agency like the Naval Criminal Investigative Service—was behind the abrupt ambush, but he discarded those ideas. Law enforcement agents would sweep in to arrest everyone, not shoot them. Something else was going on here and now; something very, very wrong.
Shouts from somewhere in the distance drifted across the compound, and Jack could hear distinctive Japanese intonations. A moment later, he caught sight of figures moving along the hillside on both sides of the depot. He counted at least ten men, all of them dressed in dark clothing, emerging from concealment all around the yard.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, and before Banovich could offer a reply, he was keying his radio mic. “Alkaev, we’ve been set up. Pull back, now.”
“Acknowledged,” replied the other man over the open channel, but before his transmission ended Jack heard the snap of weapons fire echoing in his earpiece. The shots were followed by the sound of someone, likely Alkaev, shouting a warning.
Jack grunted with irritation and mounting anxiety. “Damn it!” Rising to a kneeling position, he reached for the Dragunov with his left hand as he pushed himself to his feet. “Amorah, come on, we’ve got to.…”
Thirty feet away, beyond Banovich and almost cloaked in shadow, two figures moved.