Zana and Zoran were confused.
They’d heard the loud echo of the shot. Zoran, who was trained in the ways of war, had seen the brief yellow spark of the rifle.
“Did you expect that?” Zoran asked the older gentleman. “It sounded like a rifle. The shot came from over there.” He pointed.
“No,” Zana said, bending forward in fear. “Was he shooting at us?”
“No, not at us,” answered Zoran, seemingly unfazed. “It went off that way, I think, based on the way I saw the muzzle flash.”
Zana pulled Zoran down low, cowering. “All I can think,” the scientist whispered, “is that it’s Reza, the man I’m supposed to meet. Maybe a signal?”
“Did they say anything about a signal?”
“No.”
“It could be IRGC, then.”
“If it was IRGC, they would have come and arrested us first,” said Zana. “There’d be jeeps and helicopters everywhere. It has to be Reza. Maybe you should fire that thing once up in the air to let him know we’re here?”
“No. Whoever it is might think we’re the enemy.”
“Well, then let’s just walk to the center of the pasture, like we’re supposed to. I’m sure the Americans will have some way to see us in the dark.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Zoran.
The veteran guerrilla fighter stood first. They walked forward, toward the pasture’s center. As they got close, Zana heard another rifle shot. It sounded closer than before, louder. Then he heard a thudding crack two feet from his ear.
Zoran took the bullet in the head and fell back, the AK skittering to the dirt beside him. It took a few beats for Zana to understand what had happened. Then he saw that Zoran’s head was virtually gone, like it had just vanished.
Panicking, the scientist ran back to the tall grass that surrounded the pasture, then dove into a copse of weeds.
When he’d finally gathered his wits, he thought that maybe it was Reza. Maybe the CIA man had perceived Zoran as an enemy after all. The shot had gone so cleanly at Zoran, not at him.
After thinking it over, Zana thought it plausible. It had almost certainly been a tragic mistake. He now thought that it made more sense to come out and show himself as unarmed, ready to meet. But he felt sick for poor Zoran, the iron-limbed man.
A hundred yards away, Dale had risen to his hands and knees, gasping. The sniper’s bullet had nicked the armor plate over his abdomen at an angle, breaking some ribs. Dale had been springing from a crouch, crossing a dry creek bed with a leap when it hit.
Jumping that creek bed had probably saved his life, he thought, gasping at the searing sting in his gut. The bullet had probably been aimed at his head. Instead, it hit as a glancing blow, smack in the middle of the Kevlar.
Now he scrunched up against the bank, panting, trying to fight off the pain. There was no blood. The wound hurt, but he wasn’t out of the fight yet.
He had to get control of this. He had to know what was going on up there in the corral. If he didn’t, he was a dead man.
Then he heard the second shot.
Fuck, he thought. Whoever was up there shooting had probably just killed Cerberus. The whole thing was a bust. Fuck! He forced himself to breathe deeply, told himself to calm down, to assess the tactical situation. Right now he had to worry about his own ass.
It had come from that bluff up there, about two hundred yards over. It had to have been the same guy who had gotten him in the breastplate. Now he was pinned down under the bastard.
He remembered the IR reflector in his pocket. Moving slowly, painfully, he shifted to get it out. He attached it to his shoulder with Velcro. Maybe, just maybe, there was an armed American drone up there in the night sky with a Hellfire. Maybe somebody watching would have the good sense to plaster that bastard sniper on the bluff.
He was half right.
Meredith had yanked Rance into the DEVGRU CO’s tiny plywood side office, which had been carved out of a corner of the ops center. They were alone in the six-foot-square space, jammed against the CO’s makeshift desk, which was scattered with yellow legal pads and Post-it Notes. Meredith stood before Rance, glowering, her arms crossed tightly to smother a heaving sickness working its way up her gut.
“You need to order the launch. Now,” she said. Her voice had an uneven quality. Her mouth was dry.
Rance looked at her piteously. “You’re the one who said it was John out there, Meredith. If you were right, then you have to accept that he’s gone.” Rance tried to take on a consoling, fatherly look. “I know it’s tough, but the facts are the facts. I’m sorry.”
She had no time for his attempt. “He was moving, Ed, crawling. He may be hit, but he’s alive. For God’s sake, it’s a twenty-minute flight right across the border. We can get him and Cerberus. This can all be okay! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“And the sniper? We’ve been had, Meredith. Face it. I’m sorry about John. I really am, but we can’t rush into the middle of an ambush. This isn’t a video game.”
“Do we not have a fucking SEAL team standing right over there? Do you think they can’t handle a sniper? We’ve got ISR and enough firepower to create a swath of flame from here to Tehran. Let’s go!”
“No,” he said flatly. “My official order is no. I’m sorry.”
He put a consoling hand on her forearm. She jerked free of him, disgusted.
He said, “Meredith, I know you’re in pain right now. But even you can’t deny that there’s something wrong with the op. It’s compromised. Rushing into it with guns blazing would be a mistake. We can’t risk a war over it.”
This idiot in front of her, the crazed assassin, John, the botched op . . . it all was suddenly too much. She clenched her eyes shut, raised a hand to pinch the skin at the bridge of her nose, bit a cheek. She had to think of something—now.
Rance looked on, silent, watching her.
She expelled a rushed breath. She recrossed her arms to steady herself. No. She was not going to let this happen.
Rance’s last few words rang through her head like a bell. Compromised? Oh, yeah, it sure has been, she thought. She’d been waiting to say anything about this, wanting to get John to safety first. But now what did it matter? She was out of options.
She pulled out her phone, opened an app. “Who’s she, Ed?”
It was the photo of the blonde. Her throat was cut, smeared with blood. The cold blue eyes stared vacantly. The made-up face was framed by the patterned carpet of a hotel room. Meredith watched Rance carefully as he comprehended it.
“What’s this . . . ?” he started. “What do you think . . . ?”
His mouth went slack, his face turned ashen. He groped for something to say.
She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt then. The leak had been Rance.
“You’re fucked,” she said. “I killed that bitch in my hotel room twenty-four hours ago. She came to hit me. Same Russian whore that went after John in Mumbai. But I fucking got her. Didn’t plan on that, did you? How’d that happen, Ed?”
Visibly deflating, Rance sat down in the CO’s desk chair, his head in his hands, hair spiking through his fingers. Just on the other side of the plywood wall, the operations team was still at work. Meredith could hear a military voice now and then, but otherwise she was alone with Rance.
She persisted. “Who is she, Ed? Huh? I’d guess SVR Directorate S, wouldn’t you? You want to tell me now or do you want to explain to the SEAL team out there that you’re a fucking traitor?”
“No.”
“Fuck you. Traitor.”
“I’m no traitor.”
“What, then?”
“I’m—”
She cut him off. “I don’t know what you are. But you know what else? I don’t have time for this shit. You’re going to give the order to launch that team. Right now.”
“Meredith, no. No matter what you think this is . . . I can explain it. It’s not what you think. I still can’t start a war. We can’t. There’s clearly been a compromise. It’s bigger than—”
“I’m tired of hearing that, Ed. I think you already did start a war. Give the order.”
“No.”
Standing over him, she let one hand fall to her side, resting it on the Glock’s grip. But the hand stopped there. “We both know I’m in charge of this op now, traitor.”
Rance closed his eyes, shaking his head. His throat moved as he swallowed before he spoke. “It was an affair, Meredith. That’s all you need to know. I’m not a traitor. But I was stupid. She must have been . . .”
His eyes opened. They danced back and forth as though searching for something.
“Give the order. Tell them to launch,” Meredith said. She kept her hand resting on the grip. “Do it.”
“I can’t do that. It would be wrong.”
“Do you want me to get Dorsey on the line right now to clear up the chain of command?”
Rance didn’t move. Meredith put her phone on the desk, hit a button, put it on speaker.
A watch officer at Langley answered. “This is Meredith Morris-Dale for a FLASH message to—”
“Stop,” Rance said to her. “Hang up.”
Meredith hung up. “Your turn. Give the order. Do it!”
“All right,” he said weakly, raising a hand. “Okay, okay.”
He found a legal pad in a corner of the DEVGRU CO’s desk. Grabbed a pen, started writing.
“Wait. What?” she blurted. “I don’t need it in writing, asshole. I just need you to give DEVGRU the order. We don’t have time for this!”
Rance shook his head, continued writing. “It’ll only take a second. Here. Sign this.”
Meredith looked at the note. It was a one-liner specifying that she was taking full tactical command of the Active Archer op.
Fucking Rance, she thought as she scrawled her name under it. Has to cover his ass right up to the end.
Rance countersigned, saying, “Dorsey already knew about her—the woman that I . . . that you . . . killed.” He glanced up at her. Some color had returned to his face. “You’ve got command now, Meredith. But just know that I was a target of SVR, same as you. It’s all part of the same compromised op. And that’s why I wouldn’t give the order now. Know that much.”
She held up a hand and turned away. She didn’t need to hear the rest of it.
He went on from the CO’s desk chair anyway. “And keep in mind, Meredith, the leak started with SVR exposing you when you botched Sagebrush in Dubai. It was through you that SVR must have eventually gotten to me. I may have been compromised, but it all started with you. When we get back, I’ll be opening up an IG investigation into all of this and—”
“Go fuck yourself, Ed,” she said over her shoulder, halfway through the door.
It took her thirty-five seconds to find the DEVGRU CO and drag him into his own office. The Navy SEAL captain was shocked at the sudden authorization to cross the border, utterly astonished when the lady spook said she wanted to go along for the ride.
That was a bridge too far. The CO pushed back. He wasn’t about to let a nonoperator get on that helo. This wasn’t some kind of PR tour. There was going to be a firefight, for Chrissakes. He appealed to Rance for help, but the senior CIA man simply shrugged and deferred to the woman.
Faced down by both of them, the grizzled Special Forces CO began to weaken. This was a CIA op and that was their guy up there on the screen. Besides, one look at the feisty brunette with the Glock on her hip told him she was probably going to kill somebody if she didn’t get her way. Maybe even him.
The CO gave the order.
They weighed her down with a heavily armored combat vest. They tightened a helmet over her hair and asked if she wanted an M-4. No, she said, she was good to go. Now get the fuck going.
The senior chief in charge assigned a bearded boatswain’s mate they called Tex to look after her. Sure enough, Tex had a Texas-flag patch on the front of his combat vest. It was hard to see because it was otherwise covered with hand grenades.
Tex took a look at Meredith and nodded to her. Roughly, he grabbed her by the arm and strapped her in with a grunt. He seemed to be of the opinion that the Navy was always asking him to do ridiculous things. To him, this was all very weird, but par for the course, so not really a problem. Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.
Now they were rushing over the landscape, which whizzed by in a monochrome gray. Meredith started to feel airsick. That MRE might have been a bad idea. But she wasn’t about to puke in front of this crew.
Oleg rose from his hide. He left the sniper rifle where it was and picked up his AK-12. He readjusted the pistol on his leg and cinched down the strap, securing it for the run he had ahead of him. It would take him a few minutes to cover the distance to the corral and snatch Rahimi. He dashed forward, grateful for the opportunity to finally unkink his legs.
He’d nailed Dale in the chest—of that, he was sure. He’d seen him fly backward into the ditch. Nobody could have survived that; then again, Dale was a lucky son of a bitch. After nabbing Rahimi, Oleg would go make sure Dale was good and dead. He’d send a picture of the body to Zoloto. She’d probably like to see that.
Zana saw the man running toward him with a rifle in his hand, a kaffiyeh fluttering at his neck. He hadn’t seen Reza in many years, so he wasn’t sure what exactly to expect. The man sprinting his way certainly had the look of an operative. Who else could it be?
Even though he believed he was finally looking at Reza, he also thought he wasn’t yet out of the woods. Reza had just shot Zoran, thinking him a threat. What if Reza also thought Zana was some kind of enemy? What if the CIA man didn’t recognize Zana after all these years? With Zoran’s shattered head fresh in his memory, Zana walked forward with his hands raised high.
The man he thought was Reza saw him and waved without breaking stride. He kept running forward, straight at Zana. Though sorry about Zoran, Zana felt a wave of relief. It was the signal he’d been looking for. It would all be over now. Finally.
But then his heart sank. He heard the faint growl of a heavy vehicle. Glancing to his right over the otherwise black desert scrub, he saw the distant bounce of headlights heaving wildly as a vehicle rushed forward. With at least another hill to cover, it would still take some time to get to them. But the way the engine howled, the way the headlights bounced indicated to Zana that the vehicle was trouble. It wasn’t even trying to hide itself.
Only the Army would do that, Zana thought. The IRGC.
He ran forward, anxious to tell Reza what was happening.