Things had gotten chaotic in the OPS center at Hammer. The drone operators were zoomed in on the two men walking up the hill, one of them with an AK. The armed one seemed to be helping the other man along. They asked Meredith, “Could that be Cerberus?”
She needed to be sure. She asked for a short digital video clip of the weaker man to be sent to her phone. While waiting for it, she called Desmond and explained.
She zapped the video over ten thousand miles of ether to a CIA server. Desmond called back five minutes later. The wife, Nadia, said it was Cerberus. Nadia had been horrified by her husband’s diminished state, Desmond said.
Meredith couldn’t have cared less. Of greater concern was John’s response: lying there with the sniper rifle. Why wasn’t he approaching Cerberus? Why wasn’t he communicating with him somehow?
Damned if Meredith knew. She bit the inside of her cheek. John was going to get himself killed if he didn’t let them know what was going on. Then again, she could surmise why her ex-husband hadn’t seemed to move. The man with the AK was a wild card. John would simply perceive the threat and wait.
Every officer in the Hammer ops center wanted to know what AK man was doing there. They kept asking Meredith, as though she were pulling the strings from afar. Her only response was a suggestion that they launch—get the DEVGRU SEAL team in the air now, just as a backup. It was clear that all of the players had arrived on the field.
“No,” Rance said, overriding her. Not until they knew what was happening. No one wanted to start a war. As previously discussed, John needed to get his man to the border first. That was the deal. No one wanted to start a war, Rance said again.
Dale climbed to a bluff with a reasonable view of the fenced pasture. He paused to scan it with an IR scope cleverly disguised as a flashlight.
What he saw shocked him: two men huddled to one side, crouching. One of them had a rifle, the unmistakable outline of a banana clip. An AK.
Dale looked closely, zooming in. In the strange, inverted, photo-negative light of the scope, he focused on the unarmed man’s face.
Meth had provided him with a photo of Rahimi, obtained through the wife. Straining against the eyepiece, Dale thought he was looking at the man. He said a silent prayer of thanks. Cerberus—at last.
But who was the man with the Kalashnikov?
Dale studied the mystery man as best as he could. It was clear that he and Rahimi trusted each other. The man was dressed in the ragamuffin style of a mujahideen fighter. He was no IRGC regular.
Given Rahimi’s trust in the armed man, Dale decided it was going to be okay. Whoever the man was, he must’ve aided Rahimi in getting there. That made sense. It was no easy hump crossing the last ten miles to get to this remote little farm.
But Dale was still cautious. He advanced toward the corral in a tactical crouch, moving slowly, pausing now and then to sweep for threats with the IR scope.