Cliff Ryder - Aim And Fire

The phone rang once before it was picked up. “Special Agent Cassell.”

“Stephanie, this is Tracy Wentworth.”

“Yes, hello, Tracy, how are you?”

“Fine, thank you. I’ve thought over your offer and decided to accept. When do I leave?”

“Very good. We have tickets held for you on a morning flight.”

“That will be fine. Thanks very much for the opportunity—I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“Same here. You’ll be taking a company laptop down with you, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll send your itinerary, as well as that file over to your address at DHS—a little light reading on the way down. The phone will connect you directly to me anytime you need to make contact. I suggest daily reports unless something breaks earlier. Good luck, Tracy.”

“Thank you.” She closed the cell phone and tossed it on the seat next to her, then stared straight ahead, putting off the conversation with Paul until she got home. Might as well let him hope for a little while longer.

Kate switched over from Stephanie Cassell’s cell line to the next incoming call, from her agent in Pakistan. “Alpha, this is Primary, go.”

Robert Lashti’s voice sounded winded, as if he had been running. “I’ve been made, Primary. After initiating contact using the disposable asset, she lured the subject back to the room. However, she was caught administering the drug, and gave me up under duress. Subject terminated asset after getting my description, then swept the room and located our surveillance equipment. I’ve left the hotel, but the town isn’t that big, and they’re looking for me.”

“All right, Alpha, time to pull out. Can you make it to your vehicle?” As she spoke, Kate pulled up a window on the touch-sensitive screen that allowed her to juggle multiple projects, conferences and data streams at once.

She contacted the Room 59 hacker on duty and requested a satellite map of the town of Panamik, as well as the quickest route north to China.

“Negative, subject’s men are watching it. They’re good, too—I almost walked right into them,” Lashti said. “Probably ex-military, more Spetsnaz if we’re really unlucky.”

Swearing under her breath, Kate opened a new window to Pai Kun in Beijing to apprise him of the situation. She never liked bringing in more Room 59 operatives to assist with an extraction, but since their Asian director was only half a continent instead of half a world away, he needed to know what was happening to carry the ball when she handed it off.

“I’m attempting to procure another vehicle. However, everything around me seems to be limited to tractors and oxen—hardly suitable for the trip.”

“How did subject and his men arrive?” Kate asked.

“I had thought by SUV, but I am currently unable to locate it.”

“Okay, just keep your head down for a moment.” Kate brought up the overhead view of Panamik, finding it to be indeed a one-ox town, although the largest in the area.

There was a main road that bisected the sparse business section, and off to the northwest was a military base, which was of no help to her operative at all. He needed reliable wheels, and fast.

Kate opened a voice channel to her hacker. “Can you run a thermal scan on the buildings around that hotel? I’m looking for a still-warm engine,” she said.

“I’m on it,” came the reply.

“Damn, where’d they come from!” she heard a muffled shout in her headset, followed by the thuds of several running feet.

“Alpha, what’s happening?”

“They spotted me…kids ratted me out…gonna try to… lose them—”

“Hold on, I’m going to visual.” Kate popped open a third window, this one showing her the view through Lashti’s glasses camera, the rough walls of the buildings on either side of him bouncing up and down as he pounded down the dirt road, trying to outdistance his pursuers.

A soft chime announced that Pai Kun was online, as well. As usual, he wasted no time on inconsequential matters. “Alpha will have to get himself out of town at the very least before we can extract him. I can do a lot, but I don’t have anyone that close at the moment, and the region is volatile enough without anyone thinking the Chinese may be involved in covert activity there.”

“That would be the last thing we need,” Kate replied, then switched to the hacker. “Got anything yet?”

The words “It’s coming up now” appeared on her screen. The regular street map disappeared, and an eerie blue-and-black thermal view of the dark town appeared instead. Kate saw a tiny red-orange figure running down a narrow alley. He was chased by two others across a street and into another alley. She quickly scanned the buildings around the hotel, looking for the telltale heat bloom of an idling car. There!

“Alpha, turn left at the next intersection, and head back toward the hotel. Their SUV is in a building approximately twenty-five yards south of it. I’ll guide you to it.”

Kate drew on the monitor, tracing the route her operative would have to take. As she plotted the route, the computer used the satellite imagery to give her the precise distances of each leg, as well as visual points to lead him through it. “Move forward ten yards, then turn left again.

Circle around the hut you’re near…cross the road ahead of you…they’re about thirty yards back. Checking cross alleys, looks like you’ve lost them for now.”

Lashti had stopped in the deep shadow of an overhang-ing hut roof. “Dawn’s going to be breaking soon, and there won’t be any place to hide. Primary, if I don’t make it out of here, you need to know that all of the data I’ve collected indicated that our subject thought he was selling a live device. He had no idea it was a fake.”

Kate didn’t let this revelation slow her down for a second. “Good. Now let’s get you out of there so you can debrief properly. You’re close to the shed containing the SUV—you might even be able to hear it idling now.”

The camera view of Lashti panned left, then right as he scanned the area. “Not yet. Where to next?”

“Go to the front of the hut you’re near right now, then go two more buildings down on your left. The SUV should be behind the second one.”

“Affirmative.” The operative skulked from hut to hut while Kate kept an eye out for trouble, both of them aware of the glimmers of sunlight brightening the eastern horizon with every passing minute.

“Alpha, freeze right now!” Kate ordered.

Lashti flattened himself against the wall as two men walked out of the hut, dressed in heavy coats against the chill mountain morning. The two men showed up as small moving blue dots on Kate’s screen, with tiny red dots for their faces. They turned left, away from Lashti, and walked down the street.

“Give them a few seconds.” Kate split her attention between the receding pair of men and the approaching Russians, who were searching the narrow alleys and squat, one-story buildings with precision. “All right, go to the back of the hut. Their SUV is inside the shed. There’s one man guarding it, but the others are only about forty yards from your position, so you’ll have to take him out silently.”

“It’s never just as simple as catching a plane out of the country, is it?” Lashti whispered.

Kate sent a quick text message to the hacker. “No, but I think I might have a way to speed this up.”

Lashti silently reached the double doors, and both he and Kate could clearly hear the SUV’s purring engine.

“I’m here. Now I just need a way to get him outside without getting me shot in the process.”

“Just wait another few seconds.” Kate kept an eye on the two Russians, who were now only twenty yards away and getting closer by the second. The screen flashed as the hacker uploaded a sound file and message to Kate: “I can’t guarantee the translation accuracy, but this should do it.”