Andrew Britton - The Assassin

“Shane Bennett,” he said in a low rumble. “You’re Kharmai, right?”

Naomi nodded, hoping she didn’t look as intimidated as she felt. “Yes, that’s me. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Same here.” He offered a warm smile, and she felt herself relax a little.

Bennett turned to Kealey and shook his hand. “And you’re Kealey. Good to meet you.”

Kealey returned the sentiment, but Bennett frowned as though he were trying to place the other man’s face. Suddenly, recognition sparked in his eyes, and his mouth dropped open. “Holy shit, I know you. You were in the Shahikot, weren’t you?”

Kealey looked uncomfortable. “That’s right. I remember you, too. Mako 31. You were the combat controller.”

“That’s it.” Bennett grinned broadly. “Never thought I’d see you again. Anyway, I don’t mean to hold you up. You have everything you need?”

Kealey looked down at Naomi’s bag. “Yeah, looks like it.”

Naomi scowled, catching the sarcasm. Ryan’s only luggage was a tiny black grip, which was slung over his right shoulder. She didn’t know how he could travel so light, and she felt a certain satisfaction when Bennett lifted her large suitcase with one arm and tossed it easily into the back of the Range Rover.

Ryan moved to the front, so she climbed into the backseat. As soon as the doors were closed, a shrill noise penetrated the warm, still air inside the vehicle. Bennett lifted a satellite phone from between the seats and answered. Listening quietly for a few seconds, he handed it over to Kealey. “It’s Harper.”

Kealey accepted the phone and got out of the truck, closing the door behind him. He moved off immediately, getting some distance between himself and the people standing outside the glass doors of the terminal. Kharmai and Bennett were left to sit in uncomfortable silence.

“So,” he finally said, turning slightly in his seat. “How long you been with the Agency?”

“About five years,” she replied, thinking it best not to mention the fact that she’d just been fired. “What about you?”

“Less than a year,” Bennett said, running a hand over his close-cropped hair. “Director Harper brought me in personally. I did some work with his people when I was still with the Air Force.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but when I think of people moving from the military into the CIA, the Air Force doesn’t exactly spring to mind. Except for pilots, that is, and you don’t seem to fit the profile.”

He emitted a short, barking laugh. “Can’t argue with that. You’ve got a sharp eye, missy.”

Missy? She looked out the rain-streaked window, shrugging it off. She didn’t think he was being intentionally condescending, and she didn’t want to get off to a bad start. She decided to change the subject. “So what were you saying about the Shahikot? Where is that, anyway?”

“Afghanistan,” Bennett replied. He lifted a cup of coffee from between the seats and showed it to her, raising his eyebrows. She shook her head. He shrugged and peeled off the lid, taking a long sip.

“When were you there?” Naomi pressed.

“In 2002. You remember Operation Anaconda?”

“Vaguely. That was a while ago.” She hesitated. “You said Ryan was there?”

Bennett nodded and laughed without turning around. “Yeah, and it’s a good thing he was, too. The man saved our asses.”

She leaned forward in her seat, suddenly interested. “What happened?”

He turned to face her. “Well, you have to know a little about what was happening at the time. It was less than a year after 9/11, four months after the fall of the Taliban. Six weeks after we missed bin Laden in Tora Bora, the decision was made to sweep into the Shahikot Valley in eastern Afghanistan. Our intelligence indicated a large number of al-Qaeda fighters were holed up in the area, including a number of HVTs.”

Catching her confused expression, Bennett explained. “High-value targets. Senior al-Qaeda leaders. Anyway, Anaconda was a huge endeavor, involving more than two thousand soldiers from 10th Mountain and the 101st Airborne. The Rangers were in on it, too, along with a bunch of SF. The big push was to come on March second. Two days beforehand, reconnaissance units were sent in to the valley to set up observation posts, what we called OPs.”

“And you were in one of those units?”

He nodded. “Mako 31. Our goal was to reach what we called the Finger — a ridgeline extending into the southern half of the valley, eleven thousand feet of razor-sharp rock. It was a two-day, seven-mile climb through knee-deep snow just to get to the top, but when we did, we got the surprise of a lifetime. Two men on a DShK machine gun, Soviet-made, with more than two thousand rounds. They had everything: a heated tent, fuel, food, plenty of small arms. They were in perfect position to ambush the Chinooks coming through the next day. So we called it in to AFO — that’s Advanced Force Operations — and the decision was made to take them out.”

“But something went wrong?”

“It was a complete disaster,” Bennett said cheerfully. “There were six men in Mako 31: three guys from SEAL Team 6, one of whom was the commander, a Navy explosives expert, Kealey, and me. Everyone knew Kealey was with the Agency, but he’d been in-country from the start, so when he asked to come along, no one really complained. One guy threw up a few objections, but Kealey was in tight with the head of AFO, a guy he knew from Delta, so he got the okay. His presence in the Shahikot was never recorded.”

Bennett paused to take another sip of coffee. “Anyway, the commander sent the other two SEALs over the ridge to take a closer look. Everything went fine. Then, just after four a.m., one of the fighters went looking for a place to piss, and he stumbled onto our position. He ran back to the tent, screaming his head off. The two SEALs on watch got over the ridge and fired on the enemy encampment, but their weapons jammed after the first couple of rounds. It was just one of those things. They cleared them as fast as they could, but the bad guys were already alerted. They pulled the tarp off the DShK and started to turn it around, but Kealey shot the guy loading the gun, then the gunner himself. He caught a bullet himself for his trouble.”

“Unbelievable,” Naomi breathed. She looked out the window. Ryan was still on the phone, his back to the Range Rover. “What happened then?”

“The SEALs managed to clear their weapons and started to engage. The commander grabbed Kealey and pulled him to cover while I called in our air support. The gunners on board laced the mountain with 105mm rounds. There wasn’t much left of the enemy when it was over, I can tell you that.”

“And Ryan?”

“He let one of the SEALs patch him up, but he refused an evac. He hung on for the duration.” Bennett fell silent for a moment, then let out a laugh. “You know the funny thing?”

“What’s that?” Naomi asked.

“The only guy who objected to Kealey joining Mako 31 was an army colonel, the commander of Task Force Rakkasan. He was scheduled to be on board the lead Chinook coming through the pass the very next day. If we hadn’t taken out that machine gun, he probably would have been shot to pieces, along with most of his men.”

Naomi fell back in her seat, taking it in. It was an amazing story, but before she could consider it further, Ryan was back at the vehicle, pulling open the front door. He handed the phone to Bennett as he climbed in. Looking between them, he seemed to sense that something had transpired while he was out of the vehicle, but he let it pass. “Let’s go.”

The drive into the city took forty minutes; the traffic slowed to a near halt on the A111. Kealey used the time to question Bennett thoroughly, and what he learned was not encouraging. The former Air Force sergeant didn’t have the rank to allocate resources, and his other responsibilities had kept him occupied for most of the day, which meant that Ruhmann’s residence in Berlin had gone unwatched for hours on end. The lack of surveillance prompted Kealey to ask the obvious question.