Brad Taylor - Enemy of Mine

“What about the vehicle IED you emplaced yesterday? On a member of my team’s car?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I spent all of yesterday following the Ghost, trying to figure out his plan. I lost him at a mosque. There’s no way I could do that and go around building car bombs.”

He looked genuinely puzzled by the question, as if he thought we were testing him and he knew his answer would fail. This is sounding too crazy. I put a double pillowcase on his head and motioned Jennifer and Knuckles out of the van. I positioned myself so I could see his body in the back and spoke over my shoulder.

“What do you think?”

Knuckles said, “I don’t know. He’s a slimy bastard, but everything he’s saying makes sense. It answers the question of why there’d be a bomb from Hezbollah targeting the very assassin they were looking to hire, and we did see him kill the Hezbollah leadership cell. As insane as it sounds, he might be telling the truth.”

“Jennifer?” I said.

“I don’t trust him. This could just be a stalling tactic. He’s pure evil. I find it hard to believe he’d do something that was morally just if no money were involved. He’s not built that way.”

“Yeah, I’m with you. But distrusting him doesn’t solve our current problem. That Saudi is still running around.”

Knuckles said, “Well, see what he can tell us about that guy. The minute he says something we can refute, we start getting rough.”

Back in the van, I pulled his hood off. “Tell me about the Ghost. What’s he look like? Where was he bedding down? What was your plan to remove him?”

“I need my tablet.”

I dug the computer out of his backpack and handed it to him. He held out his hands and said, “This would be quicker if you cut these flex-ties.”

I cuffed the back of his head. “Nice try. Get to work or I’m going to assume you’re stalling.”

In seconds, I was looking at a passport photo of the same guy from the Yemen biometric scan. The one who’d built the improvised shaped charge. The lighting was different in each, and in the passport photo he was wearing thick glasses, but there was no mistaking him. The name on the passport was the same as well. A citizen of Saudi Arabia.

Lucas said, “This is the guy. I don’t know his true name, but he’s called the Ghost for other killings he’s done. He’s been here for a few days, but I haven’t been able to get a handle on his plan. I followed him most of the day yesterday, then, like I said, I lost him at a mosque. He went to electronic and hardware stores, but didn’t develop any pattern, as if he was rehearsing a vehicle hit or anything. I also never saw him conduct a recce of anything else I would consider a kill zone. The only thing out of place was a visit to the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa. By the time I parked, I had lost him, so I’m not sure what he was doing.”

“That’s not a whole lot. What can you give us to work with?”

He manipulated his tablet, pulling up a map with icons embedded. Most were of the locations we’d already seen the previous day. He pointed at a new one.

“I had a beacon installed into a briefcase he used. It hasn’t been much help, but it did go to these two locations. The first is the bed-down site he used until last night. The second is inside the Burj Khalifa. Those are the only two anchors I have, which, since the briefcase only moved once during this entire time, I’m assuming are important. He’s going to do something at the Burj Khalifa.”

“What were you going to do to prevent it?”

“I was going to hit the bed-down site and see what I could find out. From there, if I got nothing, I was simply going to stage at the Burj to intercept him. He’s going back there, I’m sure of it.”

That sounded like as good of a plan as I could come up with right now. I went through his pockets and pulled out his hotel key.

“Jennifer, head up to his room and search it. See if Mister Goody Two-shoes here is feeding us horseshit. Let us know what you find.”

“Where are you going?”

“The bed-down site.”

Knuckles squinted and motioned me outside of the van. I bagged Lucas again and exited.

“Pike, you need to let Blaine know what’s up before we do anything else.”

Shit. I had forgotten Kurt had sent me some personal oversight. I had grown used to operating on my own. I liked and trusted LTC Alexander, but I was sure he’d simply side with his orders and the Council. Well, it’s worth the call. Worst case you’re going to ignore him anyway. Best case, we get barbecued together when we get home.

I got him on my secure Taskforce phone and relayed the situation. As expected, he balked.

“Pike, we’re at Jackpot. We’ve accomplished our mission. Let’s get Lucas on the Skyhook and call it a day. We don’t have Omega authority for anything else.”

“Are you kidding me, sir? His information changes everything. He’s confirmed another assassin, and the Omega was predicated on the hit being stopped with the capture of Lucas. Shit, taking him down didn’t alter anything at all.”

“You’re assuming he’s telling the truth.”

“No, I’m worst-casing it. If he’s not telling the truth, then we have nothing to fear because the assassin’s in the back of our van. If he is, we can’t afford to ignore it.”

“Let me get this information to Kurt and the Taskforce. He’ll get Omega and make this whole thing legal.”

I looked at my watch, feeling a chill. “Too late. Envoy’s on the ground. We either go unilateral, or he dies.”

The Ghost watched an attractive Westerner walk by him to the elevators. She had come from the back, and he wondered if they would bring the envoy’s party in that way. He hadn’t seen any metal detectors and assumed it was blocked off.

No matter. They’ll still have to pass within range to reach the elevators themselves.

The itinerary he’d been given showed that the envoy should already be on the ground. The Ghost knew they would check into the hotel prior to going to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid’s palace for a personal visit. After that, the royal tour of the town, to include the Burj Khalifa.

A flurry of activity out front attracted his attention. Three Mercedes limousines wheeled up, and out sprang eight men, five in Western suits, three in traditional Gulf Arabic attire. He surreptitiously snaked a hand into his knapsack and turned on the IMSI grabber.

The men were met at the front door by a receptionist and led around the security in place to the northern elevators, manned by two large security guards. In seconds, they were lost from sight. The Ghost killed the power to his device.

He had to wait less than fifteen minutes before the elevators opened and the entourage spilled out again, walking at a fast clip. Caught off guard, he dropped the coffee he was holding and powered up the grabber again. The men were out the front door in a flash, and he wondered if he’d managed to catch any of the numbers the second time around.

He waited until the limousines were out of sight before exiting himself and flagging a cab. He went back to his hotel and examined the clutch of numbers inside the grabber. Each cycle was stored by date and time, allowing him to filter the results.

Since the grabber drew in every cell phone within range, he had collected over three dozen numbers in the short span of time he had powered it up. No way could he tell which number was the envoy’s by simply looking at the list. Which is why he had cycled the grabber twice. All he had to do was identify the cell numbers that were in both cycles. Those phones would have been within range of the grabber each time the envoy passed by, and thus would more than likely be part of the entourage.